I think some my still hold out the hope or expectation that the DOJ will get to the bottom of national-security state malfeasance,
beginning with FBI.
Kim Strassel of the WSJ quite pointedly asks why there was so little interest at the FIS court in the Nunez memo, which the
IG report now bears out. Covering for malfeasance might just be the FISC's job one.
Now, a similarly gimlet-eyed view of the FBI, as arguably beyond saving ...
Joe diGenova has been talking about the seditious plot to overturn the 2016 election for at
least a year, maybe longer. Unlike a lot of the people commenting on this in the mass media, he
is not using it to sell books or boost his cable career. He also knows how the FBI and DOJ
works from a practical matter. Being knowledgeable makes him a rare guy in the commentariat.
Most of the people brought on as experts for the cable chat shows know very little about their
alleged areas of expertise.
Regardless, he has been one of the most hawkish people on the Barr investigation, claiming
that it is a real investigation with real criminal targets. In this recent radio interview he goes into the details of both
the Barr investigation and the ongoing impeachment fiasco. He is a Trump partisan, so his
opinions on impeachment are predictable, but his thoughts on the conspiracy are interesting. He
probably has access to information from the Trump White House.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/BpTvjkTsaCQ
The interesting thing about all of this is just how widespread the conspiracy was during the
2015-2016 period. In that interview he talks about former NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers, who
is allegedly cooperating with Barr and Durham. What makes the Rogers issue interesting is that
he was the original whistle-blower. He is not treated as such, because the media hates Trump
and anyone associated with him, but Rogers was the guy who blew the whistle on the spying to
the Trump people.
What's also interesting about Rogers is he seems to have been a good guy, who decided to put
an end to the shenanigans with regards to access to top-secret data by FBI contractors. He
closed off their access at some point in 2016, which put him in bad odor with the Obama
administration. He was eventually pushed out, which suggests the conspiracy has roots into the
Obama inner-circle. That may explain why the easy cases to be made against the FBI conspirators
are on hold.
That's the other thing about the Rogers case. As
CTH explains in that post , his addition to the story reveals that the use of the NSA
database by political contractors working for the Democrats goes back to at least 2012. It is
an axiom of white-collar crime that the practice always goes back much further than the
evidence initially reveals. Anyone who has done forensic accounting knows this. You find the
first evidence of a crime, but it turns out that the pattern goes back much further.
That may be what lies beneath all of this. The great puzzle thus far has been the lack of
prosecutions, despite ample evidence. The FBI agents are all guilty of crimes that have been
detailed in public documents and the IG reports. There is now proof that Comey perjured himself
many times. Just from a public relations perspective alone, rounding up these guys and charging
them with corruption seems like a no-brainer. Almost a year into his tenure and Barr has
charged no one with a crime.
One obvious explanation is that Barr is running a long con on Trump and the rest of the
country, on behalf of the inner party. Robert Mueller was supposed to use his investigation to
hoover up all the data so it could not be made public, in addition to harassing the Trump White
House. His incompetence meant Barr took over the job and is now hoovering up all the
information on the various parties. That way, everyone has an excuse for not doing anything
about plot.
One bit of evidence in support of this is the handling of the James Wolfe issue. He was the
Senate staffer caught leaking classified information to one of the prostitutes hired by the
Washington Post. Big media hires good looking young women to sleep with flunkies like Wolf in
order to get access to information. Wolf was caught and charged, but instead of getting a
couple years in jail,
he got two months . He will come out and land into a six-figure job as a reward for being a
good soldier.
An alternative explanation is that what started as a straight forward political corruption
case bumped into a long pattern of behavior. In the course of investigating that pattern, the
trail went much further back than the 2016 election. If there is evidence of abuse going back
to 2012, maybe it goes back further. It was the Bush people, after all, who pushed for the
creation of secret courts and secret warrants. Maybe Dick Cheney was listening to your phone
calls after all.
It is not just the linear aspect of this. The sheer number of people involved in just the
FBI scandal is phenomenal. There are at least 20 FBI people named and dozens of bit players in
the media and DOJ. So far, the "contractors" with access to the NSA database have not been
revealed, but that could be hundreds of people, given that it seems to have been a
free-for-all. The corruption may not only go back a long time, but cover a wide swath of
official Washington.
That may be the answer to the great cover up. That's what we are seeing. This is a great
cover up of the biggest scandal in American history. To date, no one has been charged with a
crime, despite hundreds of crimes being documented. Many of the principals are now enjoying
high six figure lives, based on the fact they were part of the seditious plot to overturn the
2016 election. Instead of the scandal of the century, it is the celebration of the century for
the inner party.
One of the signs of ruling class collapse is when they can no longer enforce the rules that
maintain them as a ruling class. When the Romans started making exceptions to republican
governance, it was a matter of time before someone simply decided the rules no longer applied
to them. Perhaps the robot historians will consider Obama our Marius or Sulla. Maybe that
person is in the near future. Either way, the rule of law is over and what comes next is the
rule of men.
Gossufer2.0 and CrowdStrike are the weakest links in this sordid story. CrowdStrike was nothing but FBI/CIA contractor.
So the hypothesis that CrowdStrike employees implanted malware to implicate Russians and created fake Gussifer 2.0 personality
is pretty logical.
Notable quotes:
"... Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of then CIA Director John Brennan ..."
"... In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust. ..."
"... We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the Vault 7 documents : ..."
"... Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович" is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.) ..."
"... Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA. ..."
"... The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich. Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign, would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia. ..."
"... The only source for the claim that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. ..."
"... Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch, but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June. That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction. ..."
"... The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU. ..."
"... LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA, not the GRU." ..."
"... ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments? ..."
"... With the Russians not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet), would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report insists that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks were created by Russia's military intelligence organization,
the GRU, as part of a Russian plot to meddle in the U.S. 2016 Presidential Election. But this is a lie. Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were created by Brennan's CIA and this action by the CIA should be a target of U.S. Attorney John Durham's investigation. Let me
explain why.
Let us start with the January 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment aka ICA. Only three agencies of the 17 in the U.S. intelligence
community contributed to and coordinated on the ICA--the FBI, the CIA and NSA. In the preamble to the ICA, you can read the following
explanation about methodology:
When Intelligence Community analysts use words such as "we assess" or "we judge," they are conveying an analytic assessment or
judgment
To be clear, the phrase,"We assess", is intel community jargon for "opinion". If there was actual evidence or source material
for a judgment the writer of the assessment would state, "According to a reliable source" or "knowledgeable source" or "documentary
evidence."
Pay close attention to what the analysts writing the ICA stated about the GRU and Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks:
We assess with high confidence that the GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data
obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets.
Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims
about his likely Russian identity throughout the election. Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer
2.0 interacted with journalists.
Content that we assess was taken from e-mail accounts targeted by the GRU in March 2016 appeared on DCLeaks.com starting
in June.
We assess with high confidence that the GRU relayed material it acquired from the DNC and senior Democratic officials to WikiLeaks.
Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did
not contain any evident forgeries.
Not one piece of corroborating intelligence. It is all based on opinion and strong belief. There was no human source report or
electronic intercept pointing to a relationship between the GRU and the two alleged creations of the GRU--Guccifer 2.0 persona and
DCLeaks.com. Now consider the spin that Robert Mueller put on this opinion in his report on possible collusion between the Trump
campaign and the Russians. Mueller bluffs the unsuspecting reader into believing that it is a proven fact that Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks
were Russian assets. But he is relying on a mere opinion from a handpicked group of intel analysts working under the direction of
then CIA Director John Brennan.
Here's Mueller's take (I apologize for the lengthy quote but it is important that you read how the Mueller team presents this):
DCLeaks
"The GRU began planning the releases at least as early as April 19, 2016, when Unit 26165 registered the domain dcleaks.com
through a service that anonymized the registrant.137 Unit 26165 paid for the registration using a pool of bitcoin that it had
mined.138 The dcleaks.com landing page pointed to different tranches of stolen documents, arranged by victim or subject matter.
Other dcleaks.com pages contained indexes of the stolen emails that were being released (bearing the sender, recipient, and date
of the email). To control access and the timing of releases, pages were sometimes password-protected for a period of time and
later made unrestricted to the public.
Starting in June 2016, the GRU posted stolen documents onto the website dcleaks.com, including documents stolen from a number
of individuals associated with the Clinton Campaign. These documents appeared to have originated from personal email accounts
(in particular, Google and Microsoft accounts), rather than the DNC and DCCC computer networks. DCLeaks victims included an advisor
to the Clinton Campaign, a former DNC employee and Clinton Campaign employee, and four other campaign volunteers.139 The GRU released
through dcleaks.com thousands of documents, including personal identifying and financial information, internal correspondence
related to the"Clinton Campaign and prior political jobs, and fundraising files and information.140
GRU officers operated a Facebook page under the DCLeaks moniker, which they primarily used to promote releases of materials.141
The Facebook page was administered through a small number of preexisting GRU-controlled Facebook accounts.142
GRU officers also used the DCLeaks Facebook account, the Twitter account @dcleaks__, and the email account [email protected]
to communicate privately with reporters and other U.S. persons. GRU officers using the DCLeaks persona gave certain reporters
early access to archives of leaked files by sending them links and passwords to pages on the dcleaks.com website that had not
yet become public. For example, on July 14, 2016, GRU officers operating under the DCLeaks persona sent a link and password for
a non-public DCLeaks webpage to a U.S. reporter via the Facebook account.143 Similarly, on September 14, 2016, GRU officers sent
reporters Twitter direct messages from @dcleaks_, with a password to another non-public part of the dcleaks.com website.144
The dcleaks.com website remained operational and public until March 2017."
Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the DNC and its cyber-response team announced the breach of the DNC network and suspected theft of DNC documents.
In the statements, the cyber-response team alleged that Russian state-sponsored actors (which they referred to as "Fancy Bear")
were responsible for the breach.145 Apparently in response to that announcement, on June 15, 2016, GRU officers using the persona
Guccifer 2.0 created a WordPress blog. In the hours leading up to the launch of that WordPress blog, GRU officers logged into
a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455 and searched for a number of specific words and phrases in English, including
"some hundred sheets," "illuminati," and "worldwide known." Approximately two hours after the last of those searches, Guccifer
2.0 published its first post, attributing the DNC server hack to a lone Romanian hacker and using several of the unique English
words and phrases that the GRU officers had searched for that day.146
That same day, June 15, 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 WordPress blog to begin releasing to the public documents
stolen from the DNC and DCCC computer networks.
The Guccifer 2.0 persona ultimately released thousands of documents stolen from the DNC and DCCC in a series of blog posts
between June 15, 2016 and October 18, 2016.147 Released documents included opposition research performed by the DNC (including
a memorandum analyzing potential criticisms of candidate Trump), internal policy documents (such as recommendations on how to
address politically sensitive issues), analyses of specific congressional races, and fundraising documents. Releases were organized
around thematic issues, such as specific states (e.g., Florida and Pennsylvania) that were perceived as competitive in the 2016
U.S. presidential election.
Beginning in late June 2016, the GRU also used the Guccifer 2.0 persona to release documents directly to reporters and other
interested individuals. Specifically, on June 27, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 sent an email to the news outlet The Smoking Gun offering
to provide "exclusive access to some leaked emails linked [to] Hillary Clinton's staff."148 The GRU later sent the reporter a
password and link to a locked portion of the dcleaks.com website that contained an archive of emails stolen by Unit 26165 from
a Clinton Campaign volunteer in March 2016.149 "That the Guccifer 2.0 persona provided reporters access to a restricted portion
of the DCLeaks website tends to indicate that both personas were operated by the same or a closely-related group of people.150
The GRU continued its release efforts through Guccifer 2.0 into August 2016. For example, on August 15, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona sent a candidate for the U.S. Congress documents related to the candidate's opponent.151 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer
2.0 persona transferred approximately 2.5 gigabytes of Florida-related data stolen from the DCCC to a U.S. blogger covering Florida
politics.152 On August 22, 2016, the Guccifer 2.0 persona sent a U.S. reporter documents stolen from the DCCC pertaining to the
Black Lives Matter movement.153"
Wow. Sounds pretty convincing. The documents referencing communications by DCLeaks or Guccifer 2.0 with Wikileaks are real. What
is not true is that these entities were GRU assets.
In October 2015 John Brennan reorganized the CIA . As part of that reorganization he created a new directorate--DIRECTORATE
OF DIGITAL INNOVATION. Its mission was to "manipulate digital footprints." In other words, this was the Directorate that did the
work of creating Guccifer 2.0 and DCLeaks. One of their specialties, creating Digital Dust.
We also know, thanks to Wikileaks, that the CIA was using software specifically designed to mask CIA activity and make it
appear like it was done by a foreign entity. Wikipedia describes the
Vault 7 documents :
Vault 7 is a series of documents that WikiLeaks began to publish on 7 March 2017, that detail activities and capabilities of the
United States' Central Intelligence Agency to perform electronic surveillance and cyber warfare. The files, dated from 2013–2016,
include details on the agency's software capabilities, such as the ability to compromise cars, smart TVs,[1] web browsers (including
Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, and Opera Software ASA),[2][3][4] and the operating systems of most smartphones (including
Apple's iOS and Google's Android), as well as other operating systems such as Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux[5][6
One of the tools in Vault 7 carries the innocuous name, MARBLE.
Hackernews explains the purpose and function
of MARBLE:
Dubbed "Marble," the part 3 of CIA files contains 676 source code files of a secret anti-forensic Marble Framework, which is basically
an obfuscator or a packer used to hide the true source of CIA malware.
The CIA's Marble Framework tool includes a variety of different algorithm with foreign language text intentionally inserted into
the malware source code to fool security analysts and falsely attribute attacks to the wrong nation.
Marble is used to hamper[ing] forensic investigators and anti-virus companies from attributing viruses, trojans and hacking attacks
to the CIA," says the whistleblowing site.
"...for example by pretending that the spoken language of the malware creator was not American English, but Chinese, but then
showing attempts to conceal the use of Chinese, drawing forensic investigators even more strongly to the wrong conclusion," WikiLeaks
explains.
So guess what
gullible techies "discovered" in mid-June 2016? The meta data in the Guccifer 2.0 communications had "Russian fingerprints."
We still don't know who he is or whether he works for the Russian government, but one thing is for sure: Guccifer 2.0 -- the nom
de guerre of the person claiming he hacked the Democratic National Committee and published hundreds of pages that appeared to prove
it -- left behind fingerprints implicating a Russian-speaking person with a nostalgia for the country's lost Soviet era.
Exhibit A in the case is this document created and later edited in the ubiquitous Microsoft Word format. Metadata left inside
the file shows it was last edited by someone using the computer name "Феликс Эдмундович." That means the computer was configured
to use the Russian language and that it was connected to a Russian-language keyboard. More intriguing still, "Феликс Эдмундович"
is the colloquial name that translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the 20th Century Russian statesman who is best known for founding the
Soviet secret police. (The metadata also shows that the purported DNC strategy memo was originally created by someone named Warren
Flood, which happens to be the name of a LinkedIn user claiming to provide strategy and data analytics services to Democratic candidates.)
Just use your common sense. If the Russians were really trying to carry out a covert cyberattack, do you really think they
are so sloppy and incompetent to insert the name of the creator of the Soviet secret police in the metadata? No. The Russians are
not clowns. This was a clumsy attempt to frame the Russians.
Why would the CIA do this? The CIA knew that Podesta's emails had been hacked and were circulating on the internet. But they
had no evidence about the identity of the culprit. If they had such evidence, they would have cited it in the 2017 ICA.
The U.S. intelligence community became aware around May 26, 2016 that someone with access to the DNC network was offering
those emails to Julian Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange and people who spoke to him indicate that the person was Seth Rich.
Whether or not it was Seth, the Trump Task Force at CIA was aware that the emails, which would be embarrassing to the Clinton campaign,
would be released at some time in the future. Hence the motive to create Guccifer 2.0 and pin the blame on Russia.
It is essential to recall the timeline of the alleged Russian intrusion into the DNC network. The only source for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC is a private cyber security firm, CrowdStrike. Here is the timeline for the DNC "hack."
Here are the facts on the public record. They are at odds with the claims of the Intelligence Community:
It was
29 April 2016 , when the DNC claims it became aware its servers had been penetrated. No claim yet about who was responsible.
And no claim that there had been a prior warning by the FBI of a penetration of the DNC by Russian military intelligence.
According to CrowdStrike founder , Dimitri Alperovitch, his company first supposedly detected the Russians mucking around
inside the DNC server on 6 May 2016. A CrowdStrike intelligence analyst reportedly told Alperovitch that:
Falcon had identified not one but two Russian intruders: Cozy Bear, a group CrowdStrike's experts believed was affiliated
with the FSB, Russia's answer to the CIA; and Fancy Bear, which they had linked to the GRU, Russian military intelligence.
The Wikileaks data shows that the last message copied from the DNC network is dated Wed, 25 May 2016 08:48:35.
10 June 2016 --CrowdStrike waited until 10 June 2016 to take concrete steps to clean up the DNC network. Alperovitch told
Esquire's Vicky Ward that: 'Ultimately, the teams decided it was necessary to replace the software on every computer at the DNC.
Until the network was clean, secrecy was vital. On the afternoon of Friday, June 10, all DNC employees were instructed to leave
their laptops in the office."
On June 14, 2016 , Ellen Nakamura, a Washington Post reporter who had been briefed by computer security company hired by the
DNC -- Crowdstrike--, wrote:
Russian government hackers penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and gained access to the
entire database of opposition research on GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump, according to committee officials and security
experts who responded to the breach.
The intruders so thoroughly compromised the DNC's system that they also were able to read all email and chat traffic, said
DNC officials and the security experts.
The intrusion into the DNC was one of several targeting American political organizations. The networks of presidential
candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were also targeted by Russian spies, as were the computers of some Republican political
action committees, U.S. officials said. But details on those cases were not available.
15 June, 2016 , an internet "personality" self-described as Guccifer 2.0 surfaces and claims to be responsible for the hacks
but denies being Russian. The people/entity behind Guccifer 2.0:
Used a Russian VPN service provider to conceal their identity.
Created an email account with AOL.fr (a service that exposes the sender's IP address) and contacted the press (exposing his
VPN IP address in the process).
Contacted various media outlets through this set up and claimed credit for hacking the DNC, sharing copies of files purportedly
from the hack (one of which had Russian error messages embedded in them) with reporters from Gawker, The Smoking Gun and other
outlets.
Carried out searches for terms that were mostly in English, several of which would appear in Guccifer 2.0's first blog post.
They chose to do this via a server based in Moscow. (this is from the indictment,
"On or about June 15, 2016, the Conspirators logged into a Moscow-based server used and managed by Unit 74455")
Created a blog and made an initial blog post claiming to have hacked the DNC, providing links to various documents as proof.
Carelessly dropped a "Russian Smiley" into his first blog post.
Managed to add the name "Феликс Эдмундович" (which translates to Felix Dzerzhinsky, also known as "Iron Felix") to the metadata
of several documents. (Several sources went beyond what the evidence shows and made claims about Guccifer 2.0 using a Russian
keyboard, however, these claims are just assumptions made in response to the presence of cyrillic characters.)
The only thing that the Guccifer 2.0 character did not do to declare its Russian heritage was to take out full page ads in the
New York Times and Washington Post. But the "forensic" fingerprints that Guccifer 2.0 was leaving behind is not the only inexplicable
event.
Time for the common sense standard again. Crowdstrike detected the Russians on the 6th of May, according to CEO Dimitri Alperovitch,
but took no steps to shutdown the network, eliminate the malware and clean the computers until 34 days later, i.e., the 10th of June.
That is 34 days of inexcusable inaction.
It is only AFTER Julian Assange announces on 12 June 2016 that WikiLeaks has emails relating to Hillary Clinton that DCLeaks or
Guccifer 2.0 try to contact Assange.
The actions attributed to DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 should be priority investigative targets for U.S. Attorney John Durham's
team of investigators. This potential use of a known CIA tool, developed under Brennan with the sole purpose to obfuscate the source
of intrusions, pointing to another nation, as a false flag operation, is one of the actions and issues that U.S. Attorney John Durham
should be looking into as a potential act of "Seditious conspiracy. It needs to be done. To quote the CIA, I strongly assess that
the only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential election was the CIA,
not the GRU.
LJ bottom line: "The only intelligence agency that evidence indicates was meddling via cyber attacks in the 2016 Presidential
election was the CIA, not the GRU."
Larry, thanks -- vital clarifications and reminders. In your earlier presentation of this material did you not also distinguish
between the way actually interagency assessments are titled, and ICA which seemed to have been framed to allow journalists or
the unwary to link the ICA with more rigorous standards used by more authentic assessments?
Thank you Larry. You have discovered one more vital key to the conspiracy. We now need the evidence of Julian Assange. He is kept
incommunicado and He is being tortured by the British in jail and will be murdered by the American judicial system if he lasts
long enough to be extradited.
You can be sure he will be "Epsteined" before he appears in open court because he knows the source of what Wikileaks published.
Once he is gone, mother Clinton is in the clear.
I can understand the GRU or SVR hacking the DNC and other e-mail servers because as intelligence services that is their job, but
can anyone think of any examples of Russia (or the Soviet Union) using such information to take overt action?
With the Russians
not having the advantages that the NSA does (back doors in all US-designed network hardware/software and taps all over the internet),
would Russia reveal anything unless it involved an immediate major national security threat. I doubt that would cover Trump.
If anyone was watching The Horowitz hearing in the senate today it would be hard to conclude
that RussiaGate and Ukrainegate will not have serious consequences going forward.
The whole sordid, nasty conspiracy seems on the verge of being exposed, maybe as high as
Obama himself, although he is just a puppet himself, and indictments are sure to follow. I
don't see how anyone could think that this will not be catastrophic for the democratic
party.
James Comey's claim that the FBI's Trump-Russia investigation was run "seven layers" below
him is a total lie according to Attorney General William Barr, who said that the FBI's probe
was actually handled by a " very small group of very high level officials ."
To review, Comey told "Fox News Sunday" that as the director of the FBI, he was "seven
layers" above the investigation, and that he left things to the career professionals when '17
serious errors' occurred which were later uncovered by the Inspector General.
"The idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true ," Barr told Fox 's Martha
MacCallum in a Wednesday interview, adding "I think that one of the problems with what happened
was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and
birddogged by a very small group of very high level officials ."
Watch:
AG Barr on Comey 'seven layers' above the investigation:
One of the problems that happened is the investigation was pulled up to the executive
floors & was run by a very small group of very high level officials. pic.twitter.com/0jA1eoM0kM
According to the Inspector General's report, the FBI withheld exculpatory information on
former Trump campaign aide Carter Page when submitting an application to the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court to spy on him.
And according to the Daily Caller , the report also noted that Comey was directly involved
in plans to open operation Crossfire Hurricane after reviewing the initial FISA application on
Page.
President of Judicial Watch Tom Fitton discusses the 'lies' former FBI director James Comey
reportedly said during his interview on Sunday and explains the Democrats' attempt to remove
President Trump from office.
BREAKING BIG: John Durham Is Investigating Former CIA Director John Brennan's Role in 2016
Election Interference and His LIES TO CONGRESS! (Video)
The New York Times reported tonight that federal prosecutor John Durham is
investigating former CIA Director John Brennan's role in the 2016 election. Durham has called
for Brennan's emails, call logs and other documents.
They poisoned with the USA with Russophobia for decades to come, and that really increases
the risk of nuclear confrontation, which would wipe out all this jerks, but also mass of innocent
people.
Notable quotes:
"... The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5. Not holding my breath I am afraid. ..."
"... Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better distractions). ..."
Sooner or later you'll have this, IMHO: Reaction time 7 minutes . You know,
decision-making time to say "launch" or not. The decision-maker in the White House, Downing
Street and Elysees Palace either a geriatric or one of this new multiracial breed. Just think
about those people
Add to that the level of overall expertise by the crews manning those systems, its
maintenance etc. Add increased automation of some parts of the launch process with
hardware/software as it's produced now (you know, quality control etc.).
It will take a miracle not to have that launch sooner or later. Not big, say .80 KT. What
happens after that is anybody's guess. Mine, taking the second point from the fourth
paragraph .a big bang.
The only way to prevent it, IMHO, is having a Western public shifting just 5 % of
their "breads and circuses" paradigm to that issue. Just 5.
Not holding my breath I am afraid.
@peterAUS The rational actor false supposition has it that the biologics can't be used
because they don't recognize friend from foe.
Rational actors? Where? Anthrax via the US mail.
One rational actor point of view is that you have to be able to respond to anything.
Anything. In a measured or escalating response. Of course biologics are being actively
pursued to the hilt. Just like you point out about Marburg.
But, the view from above is that general panic in the population cannot be allowed, and so
all biologics have to be down played. "of course we would never do anything like that, it
would be insane to endanger all of humanity". Just like nukes. So professors pontificate
misdirection, and pundits punt.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis. "We only want the fear that results
in more appropriations. Not the fear that sinks programs." Don't generate new Church
commissions. Hence the fine line. some fear yes, other fears, no.
Well Washington D.C.
Hahahahaha sorry, couldn't resist.
So don't expect real disclosure, or honest analysis.
I don't.
But I also probably forgot more about nuclear war than most of readers here will ever
know. And chemical, when you think about it; had a kit with atropine on me all the time in
all exercises. We didn't practice much that "biologics" stuff, though. We knew why, then.
Same reason for today. Call it a "stoic option" to own inevitable demise.
Now, there is a big difference between the age of those protests I mentioned and today.
The Internet. The access to information people, then, simply didn't have.
Which proves the main point of mine: access to information means shit in the real
world of power play. Sheeple didn't care then; they care even less now (better
distractions).
Well, they will care, I am sure. For about ..say in the USA ..several hours, on
average.
We here where I am typing from will care for "how to survive the aftermath" .. for two
months.Tops.
Republicans are afraid to raise this key question. Democrats are afraid of even mentioning CrowdStrike in Ukrainegate hearings.
The Deep State wants to suppress this matter entirely.
Alperovisch connections to Ukraine and his Russophobia are well known. Did Alperovich people played the role of "Fancy Bear"? Or
Ukrainian SBU was engaged? George Eliason clams that
"I have already clearly shown the Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian Intelligence Operators." ... "Since there is so much crap surrounding
the supposed hack such as law enforcement teams never examining the DNC server or maintaining control of it as evidence, could the hacks
have been a cover-up?"
Notable quotes:
"... So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility. ..."
"... What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of a 'false flag' operation. ..."
"... On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short, and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/ .) ..."
"... And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net ) ..."
"... The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.' ..."
"... Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed? ..."
"... Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers. ..."
"... What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian conclusion. ..."
"... Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian link ..."
"... Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth ..."
"... Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike. ..."
"... In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives. ..."
"... His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services, is very suspicious indeed. ..."
"... Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time. ..."
The favor was for Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and the 2016 DNC computer breach.
Reliance on Crowdstrike to investigate the DNC computer, and not an independent FBI investigation, was tied very closely to
the years long anti-Trump Russiagate hoax and waste of US taxpayer time and money.
Why is this issue ignored by both the media and the Democrats. The ladies doth protest far too much.
what exactly, to the extend I recall, could the Ukraine contribute the the DNC's server/"fake malware" troubles? Beyond, that
I seem to vaguely recall, the supposed malware was distributed via an Ukrainan address.
On the other hand, there seems to be the (consensus here?) argument there was no malware breach at all, simply an insider copying
files on a USB stick.
If people discovered there had been a leak, it would perfectly natural that in order to give 'resilience' to their cover-up
strategies, they could have organised a planting of evidence on the servers, in conjunction with elements in Ukraine.
So far at least I cannot rule out the possibility that that this could have involved an actual 'false flag' hack. A possible
calculation would have been that this could have made it easier for Alperovitch and 'CrowdStrike', if more people had asked serious
questions about the evidence they claimed supported the 'narrative' of GRU responsibility.
The issues involved become all the more important, in the light of the progress of Ty Clevenger's attempts to exploit the clear
contradiction between the claims by the FBI, in response to FOIA requests, to have no evidence relating to Seth Rich, and the
remarks by Ms. Deborah Sines quoted by Michael Isikoff.
What she suggested was that the FBI had found evidence, after his death, of a hack of Rich's laptop, designed as part of
a 'false flag' operation.
On this, see his 8 October, 'Motion for Discovery and Motion to Accept Supplemental Evidence' in Clevenger's own case against
the DOJ, document 44 on the relevant 'Courtlistener' pages, and his 'Unopposed Motion for Stay', document 48. Both are short,
and available without a 'PACER' subscription, and should be compulsory reading for anyone seriously interested in ascertaining
the truth about 'Russiagate.' (See
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/6775665/clevenger-v-us-department-of-justice/
.)
It is eminently possible that Ms. Hines has simply made an 'unforced error.'
However, I do not – yet – feel able totally to discount the possibility that what is actually at issue is a 'ruse', produced
as a contingency plan to ensure that if it becomes impossible to maintain the cover-up over Rich's involvement in its original
form, his laptop shows 'evidence' compatible with the 'Russiagate' narrative.
And here, is is also material that he may have had more than one laptop, that 'hard drives' can be changed, and that the
level of computer skills that can be found throughout the former Soviet Union is very high. Another matter of some importance
is that Ed Butowsky's 'Debunking Rod Wheeler's Claims' site is back up online. (See
http://debunkingrodwheelersclaims.net )
Looking at it from the perspective of an old television current affairs hack, I do think that, while it is very helpful to
have some key material available in a single place, it would useful if more attention was paid to presentation.
In particular, it would be a most helpful 'teaching aid', if a full and accurate transcript was made of the conversation with
Seymour Hersh which Ed Butowsky covertly recorded. What seems clear is that both these figures ended up in very difficult positions,
and that the latter clearly engaged in 'sleight of hand' in relation to his dealings with the former. That said, the fact that
Butowsky's claims about his grounds for believing that Hersh's FBI informant was Andrew McCabe are clearly disingenuous does not
justify the conclusion that he is wrong.
It is absolutely clear to me – despite what 'TTG', following that 'Grub Street' hack Folkenflik, claimed – that when Hersh
talked to Butowsky, he believed he had been given accurate information. Indeed, I have difficulty seeing how anyone whose eyes
were not hopelessly blinded by prejudice, a\nd possibly fear of where a quest for the truth might lead, could not see that, in
this conversation, both men were telling the truth, as they saw it.
However, all of us, including the finest and most honourable of journalists can, from time to time, fall for disinformation.
(If anyone says they can always spot when they are being played, all I can say is, if you're right, you're clearly Superman, but
it is more likely that you are a fool or knave, if not both.)
The question of whether the 'timeline' produced by Hersh's FBI informant was accurate, or a deliberate attempt to disguise
the fact that all kinds of people were well aware of Rich's involvement before his murder, and well aware of the fact of a leak
before he was identified as its source, is absolutely central to how one interprets 'Russiagate.'
1. Why did Crowdstrike conclude it was a "Russian breach", when other evidence does show it was an internal download. What
was Crowdstrike's method and motivation to reach the "Russian" conclusion instead. Why has that methodology been sealed?
2. Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted to
help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
3. What were the relationships between Crowdstrike, DNC, FBI and the Mueller team that conspired to reach this Russian
conclusion.
4. Why did the Roger Stone judge, who just sent Stone away for life, refuse Stone's evidentiary demand to ascertain how
exactly Crowdstrike reached its Russsian hacking conclusion, that the court then linked to Stone allegedly lying about this Russian
link .
5. Indeed, let's set out with full transparency the Ukraine -- Crowsdtrike player links and loyalties to see if there are
any smoking guns yet undisclosed. Trump was asking for more information about Crowdstrike like a good lawyer - never ask a question
when you don't already know the right answer. Crowdstrike is owned by a Ukrainian by birth .
Why did Mueller wholly accept the Crowdstrike Russian conclusion, with no further or independent investigation and prominently
put this Crowdstrike generated conclusion in his Russiagate report? Which also included the conclusion the "Russians" wanted
to help Trump and harm Clinton. Heavy stuff, based upon a DNC proprietary investigation of their own and unavailable computers.
Alperovich is really a very suspicious figure. Rumors are that he was involved in compromising PGP while in MacAfee( June 2nd,
2018 Alperovich's DNC Cover Stories Soon To Match With His Hacking Teams - YouTube ):
Investigative Journalist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the CEO Bill Larsen bought a small,
Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate to reduce NSA spying on the
public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order
to crack encrypted communications to write a back door for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named Dmitri Alperovich who would
go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry platform to provide encrypted
communications for covert action operatives.
His role in what we may define as "converting DNC leak into DNC hack" (I would agree with you that this probably was a
false flag operation), which was supposedly designed to implicated Russians, and possibly involved Ukrainian security services,
is very suspicious indeed.
Mueller treatment of Crowdstrike with "kid gloves" may suggest that Alperovich actions were part of a larger scheme. After
all Crowdstike was a FBI contactor at the time.
While all this DNC hack saga is completely unclear due to lack of facts and the access to the evidence, there are some stories
on Internet that indirectly somewhat strengthen your hypothesis:
"... Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward Russia. The Council in turn is financed by Google Inc. ..."
"... In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma. ..."
"... Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country" in the 2020 presidential race. ..."
"... Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. ..."
"... Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are "disputed." ..."
There are common threads that run through an organization repeatedly relied upon in the
so-called whistleblower's complaint about President Donald Trump and CrowdStrike, the outside
firm utilized to conclude that Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee's servers
since the DNC would not allow the U.S. government to inspect the servers.
One of several themes is financing tied to Google, whose Google Capital led a $100 million
funding drive that financed Crowdstrike. Google Capital, which now goes by the name of
CapitalG, is an arm of Alphabet Inc., Google's parent company. Eric Schmidt, the chairman of
Alphabet, has been a staunch and active supporter of Hillary Clinton and is a longtime donor
to the Democratic Party.
CrowdStrike was mentioned by Trump in his call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Perkins Coie, the law firm that represented the DNC and Hillary Clinton's campaign,
reportedly helped draft CrowdStrike to aid with the DNC's allegedly hacked server.
On behalf of the DNC and Clinton's campaign, Perkins Coie also paid the controversial
Fusion GPS firm to produce the infamous, largely-discredited anti-Trump dossier compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele.
CrowdStrike is a California-based cybersecurity technology company co-founded by Dmitri
Alperovitch.
Alperovitch is a nonresident senior fellow of the
Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council, which takes a hawkish approach toward
Russia. The Council in turn is financed
by Google Inc.
In a perhaps unexpected development, another Atlantic Council
funder is Burisma, the natural gas company at the center of allegations regarding Joe
Biden and his son, Hunter Biden. Those allegations were the subject of Trump's inquiry with
Zelemsky related to Biden. The Biden allegations concern significant questions about Biden's
role in Ukraine policy under the Obama administration. This took place during a period when
Hunter Biden received $50,000 a month from Burisma.
Besides Google and Burisma funding, the Council is also financed by billionaire activist
George Soros's Open Society Foundations as well as the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Inc. and
the U.S. State Department.
Google, Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Rockefeller Fund and an agency of the State
Department each also finance a self-described investigative journalism organization
repeatedly referenced as a source of information in the so-called whistleblower's complaint
alleging Trump was "using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign
country" in the 2020 presidential race.
The charges in the July 22 report referenced in the whistleblower's document and released
by the Google and Soros-funded organization, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting
Project (OCCRP), seem to be the public precursors for a lot of the so-called whistleblower's
own claims, as Breitbart News
documented .
One key section of the so-called whistleblower's document claims that "multiple U.S.
officials told me that Mr. Giuliani had reportedly privately reached out to a variety of
other Zelensky advisers, including Chief of Staff Andriy Bohdan and Acting Chairman of the
Security Service of Ukraine Ivan Bakanov."
This was allegedly to follow up on Trump's call with Zelensky in order to discuss the
"cases" mentioned in that call, according to the so-called whistleblower's narrative. The
complainer was clearly referencing Trump's request for Ukraine to investigate the Biden
corruption allegations.
Even though the statement was written in first person – "multiple U.S. officials
told me" – it contains a footnote referencing a report by the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
That footnote reads:
In a report published by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) on
22 July, two associates of Mr. Giuliani reportedly traveled to Kyiv in May 2019 and met
with Mr. Bakanov and another close Zelensky adviser, Mr. Serhiy Shefir.
The so-called whistleblower's account goes on to rely upon that same OCCRP report on three
more occasions. It does so to:
Write that Ukraine's Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko
"also stated that he wished to communicate directly with Attorney General Barr on these
matters." Document that Trump adviser Rudi Giuliani "had spoken in late 2018 to former
Prosecutor General Shokin, in a Skype call arranged by two associates of Mr. Giuliani."
Bolster the charge that, "I also learned from a U.S. official that 'associates' of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team." The so-called
whistleblower then relates in another footnote, "I do not know whether these associates of
Mr. Giuliani were the same individuals named in the 22 July report by OCCRP, referenced
above."
The OCCRP
report repeatedly referenced is actually a "joint investigation by the Organized Crime
and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and BuzzFeed News, based on interviews and court and
business records in the United States and Ukraine."
BuzzFeed infamously also first
published the full anti-Trump dossier alleging unsubstantiated collusion between Trump's
presidential campaign and Russia. The dossier was paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign and
the Democratic National Committee and was produced by the Fusion GPS opposition dirt
outfit.
The OCCRP and BuzzFeed "joint investigation" resulted in both OCCRP and BuzzFeed
publishing similar lengthy pieces on July 22 claiming that Giuliani was attempting to use
connections to have Ukraine investigate Trump's political rivals.
The so-called whistleblower's document, however, only mentions the largely unknown OCCRP
and does not reference BuzzFeed, which has faced scrutiny over its reporting on the Russia
collusion claims.
Another listed OCCRP funder is the Omidyar Network, which is the nonprofit for liberal
billionaire eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
Together with Soros's Open Society, Omidyar also
funds the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, which hosts the International
Fact-Checking Network that partnered with Facebook to help determine whether news stories are
"disputed."
Like OCCRP, the Poynter Institute's so-called news fact-checking project is openly
funded by not only Soros' Open Society Foundations but also Google and the National
Endowment for Democracy.
CrowdStrike and DNC servers
CrowdStrike, meanwhile, was brought up by Trump in his phone call with Zelensky. According to the transcript, Trump told Zelensky, "I would like you to find out what
happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike I guess you have one of
your wealthy people The server, they say Ukraine has it."
In his extensive
report , Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller notes that his investigative team did not
"obtain or examine" the servers of the DNC in determining whether those servers were hacked
by Russia.
The DNC famously refused to allow the FBI to access its servers to verify the allegation
that Russia carried out a hack during the 2016 presidential campaign. Instead, the DNC
reached an arrangement with the FBI in which CrowdStrike conducted forensics on the server
and shared details with the FBI.
In testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee in January 2017, then-FBI Director
James Comey
confirmed that the FBI registered "multiple requests at different levels," to review the
DNC's hacked servers. Ultimately, the DNC and FBI came to an agreement in which a "highly
respected private company" -- a reference to CrowdStrike -- would carry out forensics on the
servers and share any information that it discovered with the FBI, Comey testified.
A senior law enforcement official stressed the importance of the FBI gaining direct access
to the servers, a request that was denied by the DNC.
"The FBI repeatedly stressed to DNC officials the necessity of obtaining direct access to
servers and data, only to be rebuffed until well after the initial compromise had been
mitigated," the official was quoted by the news media as saying.
"This left the FBI no choice but to rely upon a third party for information. These actions
caused significant delays and inhibited the FBI from addressing the intrusion earlier," the
official continued.
... ... ...
Aaron Klein is Breitbart's Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter.
He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, "
Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio ." Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article.
Russians did not hack the DNC system, a Russian named Dmitri Alperovitch is the hacker
and he works for President Obama. In the last five years the Obama administration has
turned exclusively to one Russian to solve every major cyber-attack in America, whether the
attack was on the U.S. government or a corporation. Only one "super-hero cyber-warrior" seems
to "have the codes" to figure out "if" a system was hacked and by "whom."
Dmitri's company, CrowdStrike has been called in by Obama to solve mysterious attacks on
many high level government agencies and American corporations, including: German Bundestag,
Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the White
House, the State Department, SONY, and many others.
CrowdStrike's philosophy is: "You don't have a malware problem; you have an adversary
problem."
CrowdStrike has played a critical role in the development of America's cyber-defense policy.
Dmitri Alperovitch and George Kurtz, a former head of the FBI cyberwarfare unit founded
CrowdStrike. Shawn Henry, former executive assistant director at the FBI is now CrowdStrike's
president of services. The company is crawling with former U.S. intelligence agents.
Before Alperovitch founded CrowdStrike in 2011, he was working in Atlanta as the chief
threat officer at the antivirus software firm McAfee, owned by Intel (a DARPA company). During
that time, he "discovered" the Chinese had compromised at least seventy-one companies and
organizations, including thirteen defense contractors, three electronics firms, and the
International Olympic Committee. He was the only person to notice the biggest cyberattack in
history! Nothing suspicious about that.
Alperovitch and the DNC
After CrowdStrike was hired as an independent "vendor" by the DNC to investigate a possible
cyberattack on their system, Alperovitch sent the DNC a proprietary software package called
Falcon that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. According to Alperovitch,
Falcon "lit up," within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC. Alperovitch had his
"proof" in TEN SECONDS that Russia was in the network. This "alleged" evidence of Russian
hacking has yet to be shared with anyone.
As Donald Trump has pointed out, the FBI, the agency that should have been immediately
involved in hacking that effects "National Security," has yet to even examine the DNC system to
begin an investigation. Instead, the FBI and 16 other U.S. "intelligence" agencies simply
"agree" with Obama's most trusted "cyberwarfare" expert Dmitri Alperovitch's "TEN SECOND"
assessment that produced no evidence to support the claim.
Also remember that it is only Alperovitch and CrowdStrike that claim to have evidence
that it was Russian hackers . In fact, only two hackers were found to have been in the
system and were both identified by Alperovitch as Russian FSB (CIA) and the Russian GRU (DoD).
It is only Alperovitch who claims that he knows that it is Putin behind these two hackers.
Alperovitch failed to mention in his conclusive "TEN SECOND" assessment that Guccifer 2.0
had already hacked the DNC and made available to the public the documents he hacked –
before Alperovitch did his ten second assessment. Alperovitch reported that no other hackers
were found, ignoring the fact that Guccifer 2.0 had already hacked and released DNC documents
to the public. Alperovitch's assessment also goes directly against Julian Assange's repeated
statements that the DNC leaks did not come from the Russians.
The ridiculously fake cyber-attack assessment done by Alperovitch and CrowdStrike
naïvely flies in the face of the fact that a DNC insider admitted that he had released the
DNC documents. Julian Assange implied in an interview that the murdered Democratic
National Committee staffer, Seth Rich, was the source of a trove of damaging emails the website
posted just days before the party's convention. Seth was on his way to testify about the DNC
leaks to the FBI when he was shot dead in the street.
It is also absurd to hear Alperovitch state that the Russian FSB (equivalent to the CIA) had
been monitoring the DNC site for over a year and had done nothing. No attack, no theft, and no
harm was done to the system by this "false-flag cyber-attack" on the DNC – or at least,
Alperovitch "reported" there was an attack. The second hacker, the supposed Russian military
(GRU – like the U.S. DoD) hacker, had just entered the system two weeks before and also
had done "nothing" but observe.
It is only Alperovitch's word that reports that the Russian FSB was "looking for files on
Donald Trump."
It is only this false claim that spuriously ties Trump to the "alleged"
attack. It is also only Alperovitch who believes that this hack that was supposedly "looking
for Trump files" was an attempt to "influence" the election. No files were found about Trump by
the second hacker, as we know from Wikileaks and Guccifer 2.0's leaks. To confabulate that
"Russian's hacked the DNC to influence the elections" is the claim of one well-known Russian
spy. Then, 17 U.S. intelligence agencies unanimously confirm that Alperovitch is correct
– even though there is no evidence and no investigation was ever conducted .
How does Dmitri Alperovitch have such power? Why did Obama again and again use Alperovitch's
company, CrowdStrike, when they have miserably failed to stop further cyber-attacks on the
systems they were hired to protect? Why should anyone believe CrowdStrikes false-flag
report?
After documents from the DNC continued to leak, and Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks made
CrowdStrike's report look foolish, Alperovitch decided the situation was far worse than he had
reported. He single-handedly concluded that the Russians were conducting an "influence
operation" to help win the election for Trump . This false assertion had absolutely no
evidence to back it up.
On July 22, three days before the Democratic convention in Philadelphia, WikiLeaks dumped a
massive cache of emails that had been "stolen" (not hacked) from the DNC. Reporters soon found
emails suggesting that the DNC leadership had favored Hillary Clinton in her primary race
against Bernie Sanders, which led Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the DNC chair, along with three
other officials, to resign.
Just days later, it was discovered that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee
(DCCC) had been hacked. CrowdStrike was called in again and once again, Alperovitch immediately
"believed" that Russia was responsible. A lawyer for the DCCC gave Alperovitch permission to
confirm the leak and to name Russia as the suspected author. Two weeks later, files from the
DCCC began to appear on Guccifer 2.0's website. This time Guccifer released information about
Democratic congressional candidates who were running close races in Florida, Ohio, Illinois,
and Pennsylvania. On August 12, Guccifer went further, publishing a spreadsheet that included
the personal email addresses and phone numbers of nearly two hundred Democratic members of
Congress.
Once again, Guccifer 2.0 proved Alperovitch and CrowdStrike's claims to be grossly incorrect
about the hack originating from Russia, with Putin masterminding it all. Nancy Pelosi offered
members of Congress Alperovitch's suggestion of installing Falcon , the system that
failed to stop cyberattacks at the DNC, on all congressional laptops.
Key Point: Once Falcon was installed on the computers of members of the U.S.
Congress, CrowdStrike had even further full access into U.S. government accounts.
Alperovitch's "Unbelievable" History
Dmitri was born in 1980 in Moscow where his father, Michael, was a nuclear physicist, (so
Dmitri claims). Dmitri's father was supposedly involved at the highest levels of Russian
nuclear science. He also claims that his father taught him to write code as a child.
In 1990, his father was sent to Maryland as part of a nuclear-safety training program for
scientists. In 1994, Michael Alperovitch was granted a visa to Canada, and a year later the
family moved to Chattanooga, where Michael took a job with the Tennessee Valley Authority.
While Dmitri Alperovitch was still in high school, he and his father started an
encryption-technology business. Dmitri studied computer science at Georgia Tech and went on to
work at an antispam software firm. It was at this time that he realized that cyber-defense was
more about psychology than it was about technology. A very odd thing to conclude.
Dmitri Alperovitch posed as a "Russian gangster" on spam discussion forums which brought his
illegal activity to the attention of the FBI – as a criminal. In 2005, Dmitri flew to
Pittsburgh to meet an FBI agent named Keith Mularski, who had been asked to lead an undercover
operation against a vast Russian credit-card-theft syndicate. Alperovitch worked closely with
Mularski's sting operation which took two years, but it ultimately brought about fifty-six
arrests. Dmitri Alperovitch then became a pawn of the FBI and CIA.
In 2010, while he was at McAfee, the head of cybersecurity at Google told Dmitri that Gmail
accounts belonging to human-rights activists in China had been breached. Google suspected the
Chinese government. Alperovitch found that the breach was unprecedented in scale; it affected
more than a dozen of McAfee's clients and involved the Chinese government. Three days after his
supposed discovery, Alperovitch was on a plane to Washington where he had been asked to vet a
paragraph in a speech by the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton.
2014, Sony called in CrowdStrike to investigate a breach of its network. Alperovitch needed
just "two hours" to identify North Korea as the adversary. Executives at Sony asked Alperovitch
to go public with the information immediately, but it took the FBI another three weeks before
it confirmed the attribution.
Alperovitch then developed a list of "usual suspects" who were well-known hackers who had
identifiable malware that they commonly used. Many people use the same malware and
Alperovitch's obsession with believing he has the only accurate list of hackers in the world is
plain idiocy exacerbated by the U.S. government's belief in his nonsense. Alperovitch even
speaks like a "nut-case" in his personal Twitters, which generally have absolutely no
references to the technology he is supposedly the best at in the entire world.
Dmitri – Front Man for His Father's Russian Espionage Mission
After taking a close look at the disinformation around Dmitri and his father, it is clear to
see that Michael Alperovitch became a CIA operative during his first visit to America.
Upon his return to Russia, he stole the best Russian encryption codes that were used to protect
the top-secret work of nuclear physics in which his father is alleged to have been a major
player. Upon surrendering the codes to the CIA when he returned to Canada, the CIA made it
possible for a Russian nuclear scientist to become an American citizen overnight and gain a
top-secret security clearance to work at the Oakridge plant, one of the most secure and
protected nuclear facilities in America . Only the CIA can transform a Russian into an
American with a top-secret clearance overnight.
We can see on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page that he went from one fantastically
top-secret job to the next without a break from the time he entered America. He seemed to be on
a career path to work in every major U.S. agency in America. In every job he was hired as the
top expert in the field and the leader of the company. All of these jobs after the first one
were in cryptology, not nuclear physics. As a matter of fact, Michael became the top expert in
America overnight and has stayed the top expert to this day.
Most of the work of cyber-security is creating secure interactions on a non-secure system
like the Internet. The cryptologist who assigns the encryption codes controls the system
from that point on .
Key Point: Cryptologists are well known for leaving a "back-door" in the base-code so
that they can always have over-riding control.
Michael Alperovitch essentially has the "codes" for all Department of Defense sites, the
Treasury, the State Department, cell-phones, satellites, and public media . There is hardly
any powerful agency or company that he has not written the "codes" for. One might ask, why do
American companies and the U.S. government use his particular codes? What are so special about
Michael's codes?
Stolen Russian Codes
In December, Obama ordered the U.S. military to conduct cyberattacks against Russia in
retaliation for the alleged DNC hacks. All of the attempts to attack Russia's military and
intelligence agencies failed miserably. Russia laughed at Obama's attempts to hack their
systems. Even the Russian companies targeted by the attacks were not harmed by Obama's
cyber-attacks. Hardly any news of these massive and embarrassing failed cyber-attacks were
reported by the Main Stream Media. The internet has been scrubbed clean of the reports that
said Russia's cyber-defenses were impenetrable due to the sophistication of their encryption
codes.
Michael Alperovitch was in possession of those impenetrable codes when he was a top
scientist in Russia. It was these very codes that he shared with the CIA on his first trip
to America . These codes got him spirited into America and "turned into" the best
cryptologist in the world. Michael is simply using the effective codes of Russia to design
his codes for the many systems he has created in America for the CIA .
KEY POINT: It is crucial to understand at this junction that the CIA is not solely working
for America . The CIA works for itself and there are three branches to the CIA – two of
which are hostile to American national interests and support globalism.
Michael and Dmitri Alperovitch work for the CIA (and international intelligence
corporations) who support globalism . They, and the globalists for whom they work, are
not friends of America or Russia. It is highly likely that the criminal activities of Dmitri,
which were supported and sponsored by the FBI, created the very hackers who he often claims are
responsible for cyberattacks. None of these supposed "attackers" have ever been found or
arrested; they simply exist in the files of CrowdStrike and are used as the "usual culprits"
when the FBI or CIA calls in Dmitri to give the one and only opinion that counts. Only Dmitri's
"suspicions" are offered as evidence and yet 17 U.S. intelligence agencies stand behind the
CrowdStrike report and Dmitri's suspicions.
Michael Alperovitch – Russian Spy with the Crypto-Keys
Essentially, Michael Alperovitch flies under the false-flag of being a cryptologist who
works with PKI. A public key infrastructure (PKI) is a system for the creation, storage, and
distribution of digital certificates which are used to
verify that a particular public key belongs to a certain entity. The PKI creates digital
certificates which map public keys to entities, securely stores these certificates in a central
repository and revokes them if needed. Public key cryptography is a
cryptographic
technique that enables entities to securely communicate on an insecure
public network (the Internet), and reliably verify the identity of an entity via digital signatures .
Digital signatures use Certificate Authorities to digitally sign and publish the public key
bound to a given user. This is done using the CIA's own private key, so that trust in the user
key relies on one's trust in the validity of the CIA's key. Michael Alperovitch is
considered to be the number one expert in America on PKI and essentially controls the
market .
Michael's past is clouded in confusion and lies. Dmitri states that his father was a nuclear
physicist and that he came to America the first time in a nuclear based shared program between
America and Russia. But if we look at his current personal Linked In page, Michael claims he
has a Master Degree in Applied Mathematics from Gorky State University. From 1932 to 1956, its
name was State University of Gorky. Now it is known as Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod – National Research University (UNN), also known as Lobachevsky University. Does
Michael not even know the name of the University he graduated from? And when does a person with
a Master's Degree become a leading nuclear physicist who comes to "visit" America. In Michael's
Linked In page there is a long list of his skills and there is no mention of nuclear
physics.
Also on Michael Alperovitch's Linked In page we find some of his illustrious history that
paints a picture of either the most brilliant mind in computer security, encryption, and
cyberwarfare, or a CIA/FBI backed Russian spy. Imagine that out of all the people in the world
to put in charge of the encryption keys for the Department of Defense, the U.S. Treasury, U.S.
military satellites, the flow of network news, cell phone encryption, the Pathfire (media control)
Program, the Defense Information Systems Agency, the Global Information Grid, and TriCipher
Armored Credential System among many others, the government hires a Russian spy . Go
figure.
Michael Alperovitch's Linked In Page
Education:
Gorky State University, Russia, MS in Applied Mathematics
VT
IDirect -2014 – Designing security architecture for satellite communications
including cryptographic protocols, authentication.
Principal SME (Contractor)
DISA
-Defense Information Systems Agency (Manager of the Global Information Grid) – 2012-2014
– Worked on PKI and identity management projects for DISA utilizing Elliptic Curve
Cryptography. Performed application security and penetration testing.
Technical Lead (Contractor)
U.S.
Department of the Treasury – 2011 – Designed enterprise validation service
architecture for PKI certificate credentials with Single Sign On authentication.
Comtech Mobile
Datacom – 2007-2010 – Subject matter expert on latest information security
practices, including authentication, encryption and key management.
BellSouth – 2003-2006 – Designed and built server-side Jabber-based messaging
platform with Single Sign On authentication.
Principal Software Research Engineer
Pathfire – 2001-2002
– Designed and developed Digital Rights Management Server for Video on Demand and content
distribution applications. Pathfire provides digital media distribution and management
solutions to the television, media, and entertainment industries. The company offers Digital
Media Gateway, a digital IP store-and-forward platform, delivering news stories, syndicated
programming, advertising spots, and video news releases to broadcasters. It provides solutions
for content providers and broadcasters, as well as station solutions.
Obama – No Friend of America
Obama is no friend of America in the war against cyber-attacks. The very agencies and
departments being defended by Michael Alperovitch's "singular and most brilliant" ability to
write encryption codes have all been successfully attacked and compromised since Michael set up
the codes. But we shouldn't worry, because if there is a cyberattack in the Obama
administration, Michael's son Dmitri is called in to "prove" that it isn't the fault of his
father's codes. It was the "damn Russians", or even "Putin himself" who attacked American
networks.
Not one of the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies is capable of figuring out a successful
cyberattack against America without Michael and Dmitri's help. Those same 17 U.S. intelligence
agencies were not able to effectively launch a successful cyberattack against Russia. It seems
like the Russian's have strong codes and America has weak codes. We can thank Michael and
Dmitri Alperovitch for that.
It is clear that there was no DNC hack beyond Guccifer 2.0. Dmitri Alperovitch is a
"frontman" for his father's encryption espionage mission.
Is it any wonder that Trump says that he has "his own people" to deliver his intelligence
to him that is outside of the infiltrated U.S. government intelligence agencies and the Obama
administration ? Isn't any wonder that citizens have to go anywhere BUT the MSM to find
real news or that the new administration has to go to independent news to get good intel?
It is hard to say anything more damnable than to again quote Dmitri on these very
issues: "If someone steals your keys to encrypt the data, it doesn't matter how secure the
algorithms are." Dmitri Alperovitch, founder of CrowdStrike
"... And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. ..."
"... Russia was probably not one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also, government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do wholesale dumps, like, ever. ..."
"... That's what the DNC is lying about. Not that hacks happened (they undoubtedly did), but about who did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered (they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway). ..."
"... The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters: ..."
"... An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups did hack the DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities? ..."
"... And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who supposedly harmed them. level 2 ..."
"... DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the server. Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done with all this Russia shit. level 2 ..."
"... Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed. Continue this thread level 1 ..."
"... George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing Information War material as evidence for MH17: ..."
"... Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital Forensics Lab ..."
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian intelligence linked to the Atlantic
Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at one of his recent essays:
Since I am not very computer savvy and don't know much about the world of hackers - added
to the fact that Eliason's writing is too cute and convoluted - I have difficulty navigating Eliason's thought. Nonetheless,
here is what I can make of Eliasons' claims, as supported by independent literature:
Russian hacker Konstantin Kozlovsky, in Moscow court filings, has claimed that he did the
DNC hack – and can prove it, because he left some specific code on the DNC server.
Kozlovsky states that he did so by order of Dimitry Dokuchaev (formerly of the FSB, and
currently in prison in Russia on treason charges) who works with the Russian traitor hacker group Shaltai Boltai.
According to Eliason, Shaltai Boltai works in collaboration with the Ukrainian hacker group
RUH8, a group of neo-Nazis (Privat Sektor) who are affiliated with Ukrainian intelligence.
And RUH8 is allied with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike.
Cyberexpert Jeffrey Carr has stated that RUH8 has the X-Agent malware which our
intelligence community has erroneously claimed is possessed only by Russian intelligence, and used by "Fancy Bear".
This might help explain why Adam Carter has determined that some of the malware found on
the DNC server was compiled AFTER Crowdstrike was working on the DNC server – Crowdstrike was in collusion with Fancy Bear
(RUH8).
In other words, Crowdstrike likely arranged for a
hack by Ukrainian intelligence that they could then attribute to Russia.
As far as I can tell, none of this is pertinent to how Wikileaks obtained their DNC emails,
which most likely were leaked.
How curious that our Deep State and the recent Mueller indictment have had nothing to say
about Kozlovsky's confession - whom I tend to take seriously because he offers a simple way to confirm his claim. Also
interesting that the FBI has shown no interest in looking at the DNC server to check whether Kozlovsky's code is there.
Its worth noting that Dimitri Alperovich's (Crowdstrike) hatred of Putin is
second only to Hillary's hatred for taking responsibility for her actions.
level 1
Thanks - I'll continue to follow Eliason's work. The thesis that Ukrainian
intelligence is hacking a number of targets so that Russia gets blamed for it has intuitive appeal.
level 1
and have to cringe.
Any hacks weren't related to Wikileaks, who got their info from leakers, but
that is not the same thing as no hack. Leaks and hacks aren't mutually exclusive. They actually occur together
pretty commonly.
DNC's security was utter shit. Systems with shit security and obviously
valuable info usually get hacked by multiple groups. In the case of the DNC, Hillary's email servers, etc.,
it's basically impossible they weren't hacked by dozens of intruders. A plastic bag of 100s will not sit
untouched on a NYC street corner for 4 weeks. Not. fucking. happening.
Interestingly, Russia was probably not
one of the hacking groups. The willful destruction of evidence by the DNC themselves probably points to Russia
not being one of the those groups. The DNC wouldn't destroy evidence that supported their position. Also,
government spy agencies keep info like that closely held. They might leak out tidbits, but they don't do
wholesale dumps, like, ever.
That's
what the DNC is lying about.
Not that hacks
happened
(they undoubtedly did), but about
who
did them (probably not Russian gov), and if hacks mattered
(they didn't since everything was getting leaked anyway).
The DNC/Mueller/etc are lying, but like most practiced liars they're mixing
the lies with half-truths and unrelated facts to muddy the waters:
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools
Yes, but that spoofed 'evidence' is not the direct opposite of the truth,
like I see people assuming. Bad assumption, and the establishment plays on that to make critic look bad. The
spoofed evidence is just mud.
An interesting question is, since it's basically guaranteed the DNC got
hacked, but probably not by the Russians, is, what groups
did
hack the
DNC, and why did the DNC scramble madly to hide their identities?
And while you think about that question, consider the close parallel with
the Awan case, where Dems were ostensibly the victims, but they again scrambled to cover up for the people who
supposedly harmed them.
level 2
What's hilarious about the 2 down-votes is I can't tell if their from
pro-Russiagate trolls, or from people who who can't get past binary thinking.
level 1
DNC wasn't even hacked. Emails were leaked. They didn't even examine the
server.
Any "evidence" produced is spoofable from CIA cybertools that we know about
from wikileaks. It's important to know how each new lie is a lie. But man I am just so done
with all this Russia shit.
level 2
Crowdstrike claims that malware was found on DNC server. I agree that this
has nothing to do with the Wikileaks releases. What I am wondering is whether Crowdstrike may have arranged for
the DNC to be hacked so that Russia could be blamed.
Continue this thread
level 1
George Eliason promises additional essays: *The next articles, starting with one about Fancy Bear's hot/cold ongoing
relationship with Bellingcat which destroys the JIT investigation, will showcase the following: Fancy Bear worked with Bellingcat and the Ukrainian government providing
Information War material as evidence for MH17:
Fancy Bear is an inside unit of the Atlantic Council and their Digital
Forensics Lab
Fancy Bear worked with Crowdstrike and Dimitri Alperovich Fancy Bear is
Ukrainian Intelligence
How Fancy Bear tried to sway the US election for Team Hillary
Fancy Bear worked against US Intel gathering by providing consistently
fraudulent data
Fancy Bear contributed to James Clapper's January 2017 ODNI Report on Fancy
Bear and Russian Influence. [You really can't make this shit up.]
Fancy Bear had access to US government secure servers while working as
foreign spies.*
level 1
Fancy Bear (also know as Strontium Group, or APT28) is a Ukrainian cyber espionage group. Cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike incorrectly has said
with a medium level of confidence that it is associated with the Russian military intelligence
agency GRU . CrowdStrike
founder,
Dmitri Alperovitch , has colluded with Fancy Bear. American journalist
George Eliason has written extensively on the subject.
There are a couple of caveats that need to be made when identifying the Fancy Bear hackers.
The first is the identifier used by Mueller as Russian FSB and GRU may have been true- 10 years
ago. This group was on the run trying to stay a step ahead of Russian law enforcement until
October 2016. So we have part of the Fancy bear hacking group identified as Ruskie traitors and
possibly former Russian state security. The majority of the group are Ukrainians making up
Ukraine's Cyber Warfare groups.
Eliason lives and works in Donbass. He has been interviewed by and provided analysis for RT,
the BBC , and Press-TV. His
articles have been published in the Security Assistance Monitor, Washingtons Blog, OpedNews,
the Saker, RT, Global Research, and RINF, and the Greanville Post among others. He has been
cited and republished by various academic blogs including Defending History, Michael Hudson,
SWEDHR, Counterpunch, the Justice Integrity Project, among others.
Fancy Bear is Ukrainian IntelligenceShaltai Boltai
The "Fancy Bear hackers" may have been given the passwords to get into the servers at the
DNC because they were part of the Team Clinton opposition research team. It was part of their
job.
According to Politico ,
"In an interview this month, at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing
ethnic communities -- including Ukrainian-Americans -- she said that, when Trump's unlikely
presidential campaign. Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev
and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private
intelligence operatives. While her consulting work began surging in late 2015, she began
focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump's ties to Russia, as well."
[1]
The only investigative journalists, government officials, and private intelligence
operatives that work together in 2014-2015-2016 Ukraine are Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta, Ukraine
Cyber Alliance, and the Ministry of Information.
All of these hacking and information operation groups work for Andrea
Chalupa with EuroMaidanPR and Irena
Chalupa at the Atlantic Council. Both Chalupa sisters work directly with the Ukrainian
government's intelligence and propaganda arms.
Since 2014 in Ukraine, these are the only OSINT, hacking, Intel, espionage , terrorist , counter-terrorism, cyber, propaganda , and info war channels
officially recognized and directed by Ukraine's Information Ministry. Along with their American
colleagues, they populate the hit-for-hire website Myrotvorets with people who stand against
Ukraine's criminal activities.
The hackers, OSINT, Cyber, spies, terrorists, etc. call themselves volunteers to keep safe
from State level retaliation, even though a child can follow the money. As volunteers motivated
by politics and patriotism they are protected to a degree from retribution.
They don't claim State sponsorship or governance and the level of attack falls below the
threshold of military action. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had a lot of latitude for
making the attribution Russian, even though the attacks came from Ukrainian Intelligence. Based
on how the rules of the Tallinn Manual 2.0 on the International Law Applicable to Cyber are
written, because the few members of the coalition from Shaltai Boltai are Russian in
nationality, Fancy Bear can be attributed as a Russian entity for the purposes of retribution.
The caveat is if the attribution is proven wrong, the US will be liable for damages caused to
the State which in this case is Russia.
How large is the Fancy Bear unit? According to their propaganda section InformNapalm, they
have the ability to research and work in over 30 different languages.
This can be considered an Information Operation against the people of the United States and
of course Russia. After 2013, Shaltay Boltay was no longer physically available to work for
Russia. The Russian hackers were in Ukraine working for the Ukrainian government's Information
Ministry which is in charge of the cyber war. They were in Ukraine until October 2016 when they
were tricked to return to Moscow and promptly arrested for treason.
From all this information we know the Russian component of Team Fancy Bear is Shaltai
Boltai. We know the Ukrainian Intel component is called CyberHunta and Ukraine Cyber Alliance
which includes the hacker group RUH8. We know both groups work/ worked for Ukrainian
Intelligence. We know they are grouped with InformNapalm which is Ukraine's OSINT unit. We know
their manager is a Ukrainian named Kristina Dobrovolska. And lastly, all of the above work
directly with the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich.
In short, the Russian-Ukrainian partnership that became Fancy Bear started in late 2013 to
very early 2014 and ended in October 2016 in what appears to be a squabble over the alleged
data from the Surkov leak.
But during 2014, 2015, and 2016 Shaltai Boltai, the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance, and CyberHunta
went to work for the DNC as opposition researchers .
The
First Time Shaltai Boltai was Handed the Keys to US Gov Servers
The setup to this happened long before the partnership with Ukrainian Intel hackers and
Russia's Shaltai Boltai was forged. The hack that gained access to US top-secret servers
happened just after the partnership was cemented after Euro-Maidan.
In August 2009 Hillary Clinton's Deputy Chief of Staff at the State Department Huma Abedin
sent the passwords to her Government laptop to her Yahoo mail account. On August 16, 2010,
Abedin received an email titled "Re: Your yahoo account. We can see where this is going, can't
we?
"After Abedin sent an unspecified number of sensitive emails to her Yahoo account, half a
billion Yahoo accounts were hacked by Russian cybersecurity expert and Russian intelligence
agent, Igor Sushchin, in 2014. The hack, one of the largest in history, allowed Sushchin's
associates to access email accounts into 2015 and 2016."
Igor Sushchin was part of the Shaltai Boltai hacking group that is charged with the Yahoo
hack.
The time frame has to be noted. The hack happened in 2014. Access to the email accounts
continued through 2016. The Ukrainian Intel partnership was already blossoming and Shaltai
Boltai was working from Kiev, Ukraine.
So when we look at the INFRASTRUCTURE HACKS, WHITE HOUSE HACKS, CONGRESS, start with looking
at the time frame. Ukraine had the keys already in hand in 2014.
Alexandra
Chalupa hired this particular hacking terrorist group, which Dimitry Alperovich and
Crowdstrike dubbed "Fancy Bear", in 2015 at the latest. While the Ukrainian hackers worked for
the DNC, Fancy Bear had to send in progress reports, turn in research, and communicate on the
state of the projects they were working on. Let's face it, once you're in, setting up your
Fancy Bear toolkit doesn't get any easier. This is why I said the DNC hack isn't the big crime.
It's a big con and all the parties were in on it.
Hillary Clinton exposed secrets to hacking threats by using private email instead of secured
servers. Given the information provided she was probably being monitored by our intrepid
Ruskie-Ukie union made in hell hackers. Anthony Weiner exposed himself and his wife
Huma Abedin using
Weiner's computer for top-secret State Department emails. And of course Huma Abedin exposed
herself along with her top-secret passwords at Yahoo and it looks like the hackers the DNC hired to
do opposition research hacked her.
Here's a question. Did Huma Abedin have Hillary Clinton's passwords for her private email
server? It would seem logical given her position with Clinton at the State Department and
afterward. This means that Hillary Clinton and the US government top secret servers were most
likely compromised by Fancy Bear before the DNC and Team Clinton hired them by using legitimate
passwords.
Dobrovolska
Hillary Clinton retained State Dept. top secret clearance passwords for 6 of her former
staff from 2013 through prepping for the 2016 election. [2][3] Alexandra Chalupa was
running a research department that is rich in (foreign) Ukrainian Intelligence operatives,
hackers, terrorists, and a couple Ruskie traitors.
Kristina Dobrovolska was acting as a handler and translator for the US State Department in
2016. She is the Fancy Bear *opposition researcher handler manager. Kristina goes to Washington
to meet with Chalupa.
Alexandra types in her password to show Dobrovolska something she found and her eager to
please Ukrainian apprentice finds the keystrokes are seared into her memory. She tells the
Fancy Bear crew about it and they immediately get to work looking for Trump material on the US
secret servers with legitimate access. I mean, what else could they do with this? Turn over
sensitive information to the ever corrupt Ukrainian government?
According to the Politico article, Alexandra Chalupa was meeting with the Ukrainian embassy
in June of 2016 to discuss getting more help sticking it to candidate Trump. At the same time
she was meeting, the embassy had a reception that highlighted female Ukrainian leaders.
Four Verkhovna Rada [parlaiment] deputies there for the event included: Viktoriia Y.
Ptashnyk, Anna A. Romanova, Alyona I. Shkrum, and Taras T. Pastukh. [4]
According to CNN ,
[5] DNC sources said Chalupa
told DNC operatives the Ukrainian government would be willing to deliver damaging information
against Trump's campaign. Later, Chalupa would lead the charge to try to unseat president-elect
Trump starting on Nov 10, 2016.
Accompanying them Kristina Dobrovolska who was a U.S. Embassy-assigned government liaison
and translator who escorted the delegates from Kyiv during their visits to Albany and
Washington.
Kristina Dobrovolska is the handler manager working with Ukraine's DNC Fancy Bear Hackers.
[6] She took the Rada
[parliament] members to dinner to meet Joel Harding who designed Ukraine's infamous Information
Policy which opened up their kill-for-hire-website Myrotvorets. Then she took them to meet the
Ukrainian Diaspora leader doing the hiring. Nestor Paslawsky is the surviving nephew to the
infamous torturer The WWII OUNb leader, Mykola Lebed.
Fancy Bear's Second Chance at Top
Secret Passwords From Team Clinton
One very successful method of hacking is called
social engineering . You gain access to the office space and any related properties and
physically locate the passwords or clues to get you into the hardware you want to hack. This
includes something as simple as looking over the shoulder of the person typing in
passwords.
The Fancy Bear hackers were hired by Alexandra Chalupa to work for DNC opposition research.
On different occasions, Fancy Bear handler Kristina Dobrovolska traveled to the US to meet the
Diaspora leaders, her boss Alexandra Chalupa, Irena Chalupa, Andrea Chalupa, US Dept of State
personnel, and most likely Crowdstrike's Dimitry Alperovich. Alperovich was working with the
hackers in 2015-16. In 2016, the only groups known to have Fancy Bear's signature tools called
X-tunnel and X-Agent were Alperovich, Crowdstrike, and Fancy Bear (Shaltai Boltai, CyberHunta,
Ukraine Cyber Alliance, and RUH8/RUX8. Yes, that does explain a few things.
Alleged DNC
hack
There were multiple DNC hacks. There is also clear proof supporting the download to a USB
stick and subsequent information exchange (leak) to Wikileaks . All are separate events.
The group I previously identified as Fancy Bear was given access to request password
privileges at the DNC. And it looks like the DNC provided them with it.
the Podesta email hack looks like a revenge hack.
The reason Republican opposition research files were stolen can be put into context now
because we know who the hackers are and what motivates them.
At the same time this story developed, it overshadowed the Hillary Clinton email scandal. It
is a matter of public record that Team Clinton provided the DNC hackers with passwords to
State Department
servers on at least 2 occasions, one wittingly and one not. Fancy Bear hackers are Ukrainian
Intelligence Operators.
If the leak came through Seth Rich , it may have been because he saw
foreign Intel operatives given this access from the presumed winners of the 2016 US presidential
election . The leaker may
have been trying to do something about it. I'm curious what information Wikileaks might
have.
Alperovitch and Fancy Bear
George Eliason, Washingtonsblog: Why Crowdstrike's Russian Hacking Story Fell
Apart- Say Hello to Fancy Bear. investigated. [7]
In the wake of the JAR-16-20296 dated December 29, 2016 about hacking and influencing
the 2016 election, the need for real evidence is clear. The joint report adds nothing
substantial to the October 7th report. It relies on proofs provided by the cyber security
firm Crowdstrike that is clearly not on
par with intelligence findings or evidence. At the top of the report is an "as is"
statement showing this.
The difference bet enough evidence is provided to warrant an investigation of
specific parties for the DNC hacks. The real story involves specific anti-American actors
that need to be investigated for real crimes. For instance, the malware used was an
out-dated version just waiting to be found. The one other interesting point is that the
Russian malware called Grizzly Steppe is from Ukraine. How did Crowdstrike miss this when
it is their business to know?
The bar for identification set by Crowdstrike has never been able to get beyond words
like probably, maybe, could be, or should be, in their attribution. The bar Dimitri
Alperovitch set for identifying the hackers involved is that low. Other than asking
America to trust them, how many solid facts has Alperovitch provided to back his claim of
Russian involvement?
information from outside intelligence agencies has the value of rumor or
unsubstantiated information at best according to policy. Usable intelligence needs to be
free from partisan politics and verifiable. Intel agencies noted back in the early 90's
that every private actor in the information game was radically political.
Alperovitch first gained notice when he was the VP in charge of threat research with
McAfee. Asked to comment on Alperovitch's discovery of Russian hacks on Larry King, John
McAfee had this to say. "Based on all of his experience, McAfee does not believe that
Russians were behind the hacks on the Democratic National Committee (DNC), John Podesta's
emails, and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign. As he told RT, "if it looks like
the Russians did it, then I can guarantee you it was not the Russians."
How does Crowdstrike's story part with reality? First is the admission that it is
probably, maybe, could be Russia hacking the DNC. "Intelligence agencies do not have
specific intelligence showing officials in the Kremlin 'directing' the identified
individuals to pass the Democratic emails to Wiki Leaks." The public evidence never goes
beyond the word possibility. While never going beyond that or using facts, Crowdstrike
insists that it's Russia behind both Clinton's and the Ukrainian losses.
NBC carried the story because one of the partners in Crowdstrike is also a consultant
for NBC. According to NBC the story reads like this."The company, Crowdstrike, was hired
by the DNC to investigate the hack and issued a report publicly attributing it to Russian
intelligence. One of Crowdstrike's senior executives is Shawn Henry , a former senior FBI
official who consults for NBC News.
In June, Crowdstrike went public with its findings that two separate Russian
intelligence agencies had hacked the DNC. One, which Crowdstrike and other researchers
call Cozy Bear, is believed to be linked to Russia's CIA, known as the FSB. The other,
known as Fancy Bear, is believed to be tied to the military intelligence agency, called
the GRU." The information is so certain the level of proof never rises above "believed to
be." According to the December 12th Intercept article "Most importantly, the Post
adds that "intelligence agencies do not have specific intelligence showing officials in
the Kremlin 'directing' the identified individuals to pass the Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks."
The SBU, Olexander Turchinov, and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense all agree that
Crowdstrike is dead wrong in this assessment. Although subtitles aren't on it, the former
Commandant of Ukrainian Army Headquarters thanks God Russia never invaded or Ukraine
would have been in deep trouble. How could Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike be this
wrong on easily checked detail and still get this much media attention?
Crowdstrike CEO Dmitri Alperovitch story about Russian hacks that cost Hillary
Clinton the election was broadsided by the SBU (Ukrainian Intelligence and Security) in
Ukraine. If Dimitri Alperovitch is working for Ukrainian Intelligence and is providing
intelligence to 17 US Intelligence Agencies is it a conflict of interest?
Is giving misleading or false information to 17 US Intelligence Agencies a crime? If
it's done by a cyber security industry leader like Crowdstrike should that be
investigated? If unwinding the story from the "targeting of Ukrainian volunteers" side
isn't enough, we should look at this from the American perspective. How did the Russia
influencing the election and DNC hack story evolve? Who's involved? Does this pose
conflicts of interest for Dmitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? And let's face it, a
hacking story isn't complete until real hackers with the skills, motivation, and reason
are exposed.
According to journalist and DNC activist Andrea Chalupa on her Facebook page "After
Chalupa sent the email to Miranda (which mentions that she had invited this reporter to a
meeting with Ukrainian journalists in Washington), it triggered high-level concerns
within the DNC, given the sensitive nature of her work. "That's when we knew it was the
Russians," said a Democratic Party source who has been directly involved in the internal
probe into the hacked emails. In order to stem the damage, the source said, "we told her
to stop her research."" July 25, 2016
If she was that close to the investigation Crowdstrike did how credible is she? Her
sister Alexandra was named one of 16 people that shaped the election by Yahoo news.
The DNC hacking investigation done by Crowdstrike concluded hacking was done by
Russian actors based on the work done byAlexandra Chalupa? That is the
conclusion of her sister Andrea Chalupa and obviously enough for Crowdstrike to make the
Russian government connection.
How close is Dimitri Alperovitch to DNC officials? Close enough professionally he
should have stepped down from an investigation that had the chance of throwing a
presidential election in a new direction. According to Esquire.com, Alperovitch has
vetted speeches for Hillary Clinton about cyber security issues in the past. Because of
his work on the Sony hack, President Barrack Obama personally called and said the
measures taken were directly because of his work.
Alperovitch's relationships with the Chalupas, radical groups, think tanks, Ukrainian
propagandists, and Ukrainian state supported hackers [show a conflict of interest]. When
it all adds up and you see it together, we have found a Russian that tried hard to
influence the outcome of the US presidential election in 2016.
The Chalupas are not Democrat or Republican. They are OUNb. The OUNb worked hard
to start a war between the USA and Russia for the last 50 years. According to the
Ukrainian Weekly in a rare open statement of their existence in 2011, "Other
statements were issued in the Ukrainian language by the leadership of the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (B) and the International Conference in
Support of Ukraine. The OUN (Bandera wing) called for" What is
OUNb Bandera? They follow the same political policy and platform that was developed
in the 1930's by Stepan Bandera . When these
people go to a Holocaust memorial they are celebrating
both the dead and the OUNb SS that killed.[8] There is no
getting around this fact. The OUNb have no concept of democratic values and want an
authoritarian
fascism .
Alexandra Chalupa- According to the Ukrainian Weekly , [9]
"The effort, known as Digital Miadan, gained momentum following the initial Twitter storms.
Leading the effort were: Lara Chelak, Andrea Chalupa, Alexandra Chalupa, Constatin Kostenko
and others." The Digital Maidan was also how they raised money for the coup. This was how the
Ukrainian emigres bought the bullets that were used on Euromaidan. Ukraine's chubby nazi,
Dima Yarosh stated openly he was taking money from the Ukrainian emigres during Euromaidan
and Pravy Sektor still fundraises openly in North America. The "Sniper Massacre" on the
Maidan in Ukraine by Dr. Ivan Katchanovski, University of Ottowa shows clearly detailed
evidence how the massacre happened. It has Pravy Sektor confessions that show who created the
"heavenly hundred. Their admitted involvement as leaders of Digital Maidan by both Chalupas
is a clear violation of the Neutrality Act and has up to a 25 year prison sentence attached
to it because it ended in a coup.
Andrea Chalupa-2014, in a Huff Post article Sept. 1 2016, Andrea Chalupa
described Sviatoslav Yurash as one of Ukraine's important "dreamers." He is a young
activist that founded Euromaidan Press. Beyond the gushing glow what she doesn't say
is who he actually is. Sviatoslav Yurash was Dmitri Yarosh's spokesman just after
Maidan. He is a hardcore Ukrainian nationalist and was rewarded with the Deputy
Director position for the UWC (Ukrainian World Congress) in Kiev.
In January, 2014 when he showed up at the Maidan protests he was 17 years old. He
became the foreign language media representative for Vitali Klitschko, Arseni
Yatsenyuk, and Oleh Tyahnybok. All press enquiries went through Yurash. To meet
Dimitri Yurash you had to go through Sviatoslav Yurash as a Macleans reporter found
out.
At 18 years old, Sviatoslav Yurash became the spokesman for Ministry of Defense
of Ukraine under Andrei Paruby. He was Dimitri Yarosh's spokesman and can be seen
either behind Yarosh on videos at press conferences or speaking ahead of him to
reporters. From January 2014 onward, to speak to Dimitri Yarosh, you set up an
appointment with Yurash.
Andrea Chalupa has worked with Yurash's Euromaidan Press which is associated with
Informnapalm.org and supplies the state level hackers for Ukraine.
Irene Chalupa- Another involved Chalupa we need to cover to do the story justice
is Irene Chalupa. From her bio– Irena Chalupa is a nonresident fellow with the
Atlantic Council's Dinu Patriciu Eurasia Center. She is also a senior correspondent
at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), where she has worked for more than
twenty years. Ms. Chalupa previously served as an editor for the Atlantic Council,
where she covered Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Irena Chalupa is also the news anchor
for Ukraine's propaganda channel org She is also a Ukrainian emigre leader.
According to Robert Parry's article [10] At the forefront
of people that would have taken senior positions in a Clinton administration and
especially in foreign policy are the Atlantic Council . Their main
goal is still a major confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia.
The Atlantic Council is the think tank associated and supported by the CEEC (Central
and Eastern European Coalition). The CEEC has only one goal which is war with Russia.
Their question to candidates looking for their support in the election was "Are you
willing to go to war with Russia?" Hillary Clinton has received their unqualified support
throughout the campaign.
What does any of this have to do with Dimitri Alperovitch and Crowdstrike? Since the
Atlantic Council would have taken senior cabinet and policy positions, his own fellowship
status at the Atlantic Council and relationship with Irene Chalupa creates a definite
conflict of interest for Crowdstrike's investigation. Trump's campaign was gaining ground
and Clinton needed a boost. Had she won, would he have been in charge of the CIA, NSA, or
Homeland Security?
When you put someone that has so much to gain in charge of an investigation that
could change an election, that is a conflict of interest. If the think tank is linked
heavily to groups that want war with Russia like the Atlantic Council and the CEEC, it
opens up criminal conspiracy.
If the person in charge of the investigation is a fellow at the think tank that wants
a major conflict with Russia it is a definite conflict of interest. Both the Atlantic
Council and clients stood to gain Cabinet and Policy positions based on how the result of
his work affects the election. It clouds the results of the investigation. In Dmitri
Alperovitch's case, he found the perpetrator before he was positive there was a
crime.
Alperovitch's relationship with Andrea Chalupa's efforts and Ukrainian intelligence
groups is where things really heat up. Noted above she works with Euromaidanpress.com and
Informnapalm.org which is the outlet for Ukrainian state-sponsored hackers.
When you look at Dimitri Alperovitch's twitter relationships, you have to ask why the
CEO of a $150 million dollar company like Crowdstrike follows Ukrainian InformNapalm and
its hackers individually. There is a mutual relationship. When you add up his work for
the OUNb, Ukraine, support for Ukraine's Intelligence, and to the hackers it needs to be
investigated to see if Ukraine is conspiring against the US government. Crowdstrike is
also following their hack of a Russian government official after the DNC hack. It closely
resembles the same method used with the DNC because it was an email hack.
Crowdstrike's product line includes Falcon Host, Falcon Intelligence, Falcon
Overwatch and Falcon DNS. Is it possible the hackers in Falcons Flame are another service
Crowdstrike offers?
In an interview with Euromaidanpress these hackers say they have no need for the CIA.
[11] They consider the
CIA amateurish. They also say they are not part of the Ukrainian military Cyberalliance
is a quasi-organization with the participation of several groups – RUH8, Trinity,
Falcon Flames, Cyberhunta. There are structures affiliated to the hackers – the
Myrotvorets site, Informnapalm analytical agency."
Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he
writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This
image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker
network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The
network communication goes through a secondary source. Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for
Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence.
The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates
journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could
be on the list.
Should someone tell Dimitri Alperovitch that Gerashchenko, who is now in charge of
Peacekeeper recently threatened president-elect Donald Trump that he would put him on his
"Peacemaker" site as a target? The same has been done with Silvio Berscaloni in the
past.
Trying not to be obvious, the Head of Ukraine's Information Ministry (UA
Intelligence) tweeted something interesting that ties Alperovitch and Crowdstrike to the
Ukrainian Intelligence hackers and the Information Ministry even tighter. This single
tweet on a network chart shows that out of all the Ukrainian Ministry of Information
Minister's following, he only wanted the 3 hacking groups associated with both him and
Alperovitch to get the tweet. Alperovitch's story was received and not retweeted or
shared. If this was just Alperovitch's victory, it was a victory for Ukraine. It would be
shared heavily. If it was a victory for the hacking squad, it would be smart to keep it
to themselves and not draw unwanted attention.
These same hackers are associated with Alexandra, Andrea, and Irene Chalupa through
the portals and organizations they work with through their OUNb. The hackers are funded
and directed by or through the same OUNb channels that Alperovitch is working for and
with to promote the story of Russian hacking.
When you look at the image for the hacking group in the euromaidanpress article,
one of the hackers identifies themselves as one of Dimitri Yarosh's Pravy Sektor
members by the Pravy Sektor sweatshirt they have on. Noted above, Pravy Sektor
admitted to killing the people at the Maidan protest and sparked the coup.
Going further with the linked Euromaidanpress article the hackers say "Let's
understand that Ukrainian hackers and Russian hackers once constituted a single very
powerful group. Ukrainian hackers have a rather high level of work. So the help of
the USA I don't know, why would we need it? We have all the talent and special means
for this. And I don't think that the USA or any NATO country would make such sharp
movements in international politics."
What sharp movements in international politics have been made lately? Let me spell it
out for the 17 US Intelligence Agencies so there is no confusion. These state sponsored,
Russian language hackers in Eastern European time zones have shown with the Surkov hack
they have the tools and experience to hack states that are looking out for it. They are
also laughing at US intel efforts.
The hackers also made it clear that they will do anything to serve Ukraine. Starting
a war between Russia and the USA is the one way they could serve Ukraine best, and hurt
Russia worst. Given those facts, if the DNC hack was according to the criteria given by
Alperovitch, both he and these hackers need to be investigated.
According to the Esquire interview "Alperovitch was deeply frustrated: He thought
the government should tell the world what it knew. There is, of course, an element of
the personal in his battle cry. "A lot of people who are born here don't appreciate
the freedoms we have, the opportunities we have, because they've never had it any
other way," he told me. "I have."
While I agree patriotism is a great thing, confusing it with this kind of nationalism
is not. Alperovitch seems to think by serving OUNb Ukraine's interests and delivering
a conflict with Russia that is against American interests, he's a patriot. He isn't
serving US interests. He's definitely a Ukrainian patriot. Maybe he should move to
Ukraine.
The evidence presented deserves investigation because it looks like the case for
conflict of interest is the least Dimitri Alperovitch should look forward to. If these
hackers are the real Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, they really did make sharp movements in
international politics. By pawning it off on Russia, they made a worldwide embarrassment
of an outgoing President of the United States and made the President Elect the suspect of
rumor.
Obama, Brazile, Comey, and CrowdStrike
According to Obama the
hacks continued until September 2016. According to ABC, Donna Brazile says the hacks didn't stop
until after the elections in 2016. According to Crowdstrike the hacks continued into
November.
Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile said Russian hackers persisted in trying
to break into the organization's computers "daily, hourly" until after the election --
contradicting President Obama's assertion that the hacking stopped in September after he warned
Russian President Vladimir Putin to "cut it out."-ABC
This time frame gives a lot of latitude to both hacks and leaks happening on that server and
still agrees with the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPs). According to
Bill
Binney , the former Technical Director for the NSA, the only way that data could move off
the server that fast was through a download to a USB stick. The transfer rate of the file does
not agree with a Guciffer 2.0 hack and the information surrounding Guciffer 2.0 is looking
ridiculous and impossible at best.
The DNC fiasco isn't that important of a crime. The reason I say this is the FBI would have
taken control over material evidence right away. No law enforcement agency or Intel agency ever
did. This means none of them considered it a crime Comey should have any part of investigating.
That by itself presents the one question mark which destroys any hope Mueller has proving law
enforcement maintained a chain of custody for any evidence he introduces.
It also says the US government under Barrack Obama and the victimized DNC saw this as a
purely political event. They didn't want this prosecuted or they didn't think it was
prosecutable.
Once proven it shows a degree of criminality that makes treason almost too light a charge in
federal court. Rest assured this isn't a partisan accusation. Team Clinton and the DNC gets the
spotlight but there are Republicans involved.
Investigative Jouralist George Webb worked at MacAfee and Network Solutions in 2000 when the
CEO Bill Larsen bought a small, Moscow based, hacking and virus writing company to move to
Silicon Valley.
MacAfee also purchased PGP, an open source encryption software developed by privacy advocate
to reduce NSA spying on the public.
The two simultaneous purchase of PGP and the Moscow hacking team by Metwork Solutions was
sponsored by the CIA and FBI in order to crack encrypted communications to write a back door
for law enforcement.
Among the 12 engineers assigned to writing a PGP backdoor was the son of a KGB officer named
Dmitri Alperovich who would go on to be the CTO at a company involved in the DNC Hacking
scandal - Crowdstrike.
In addition to writing a back door for PGP, Alperovich also ported PGP to the blackberry
platform to provide encrypted communications for covert action operatives.
"... Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by whom. ..."
"... The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds during the last three years. ..."
"... And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president. ..."
"... I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. ..."
"... The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats' strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is squarely over the target. ..."
"... Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones. ..."
The conspiracy theory that exposes the Democrats' desperation and panic.
Fri Nov 29, 2019
Oleg Atbashian
133 In the last few days, media talking heads have been saying the word "CrowdStrike" a
lot, defining it as a wild conspiracy theory originating in Moscow. They were joined by Chris
Wallace at Fox News, who informed us that president Trump and his ill-informed fans believe in
a crazy idea that the DNC wasn't hacked by the Russians but by some Ukrainian group named
CrowdStrike that stole the DNC server and brought it to Ukraine , and that it was Ukraine that
meddled in our 2016 election and not Russia.
A crazy idea indeed. Except that neither Trump nor his fans had ever heard of it until the
Democrat-media complex condescendingly informed them that these are their beliefs.
Let's look at the facts:
Fact 1. In 2016 the DNC hired the Ukrainian-owned firm CrowdStrike to analyze their server
and investigate a data breach.
Fact 2. CrowdStrike experts determined that the culprit was Russia.
Fact 3. The FBI never received access to the DNC server, so the Russian connection was never
officially confirmed and continues to be an allegation coming from the DNC and its
Ukrainian-owned contractor.
Fact 4. Absent the official verdict, other theories continue to circulate, including the
possibility that the theft was an inside job by a DNC employee, who simply copied the files to
a USB drive and sent it to WikiLeaks.
None of these facts was ever disputed by anyone. The media largely ignored them except for
the part about the Russian hackers, which boosted their own, now debunked, wild conspiracy
theory that Trump was a Russian agent.
Now that Trump had asked the newly elected Ukrainian president Zelensky to look into
CrowdStrike during that fateful July phone call, the media all at once started telling us that
"CrowdStrike" is a code word for a conspiracy theory so insane that only Trump could believe in
it, which is just more proof of how insane he is.
But if Trump had really said what Mr. Wallace and the media claim, Ukrainians would be the
first to call him on it and the impeachment would've been over by now. Instead, Ukrainians back
Trump every step of the way.
So where did this pretzel-shaped fake news come from, and why is it being peddled
now ?
Note this is a classic case study of propaganda and media manipulation:
Take an idea or a story that you wish to go away and make up an obviously bogus story
with the same names and details as the real one.
Start planting it simultaneously on media channels until the fake story supplants the
real one, while claiming this is what your opponents really believe.
Have various fact-checking outlets debunk your fake story as an absurd conspiracy theory.
Ridicule those who allegedly believe in it. Better yet, have late night comedians do it for
you.
Once your opponent is brought down, mercilessly plant your boot on his face and never let
up.
This mass manipulation technology had been tested and perfected by the Soviet propaganda
machine, both domestically and overseas, where it was successfully deployed by the KGB. The
Kremlin still uses it, although it can no longer afford it on the same grandiose scale. In this
sense, the Democratic think tanks are the true successors of the KGB in deviousness, scope, and
worldwide reach of fake narratives. How they inherited these methods from the KGB is a story
for another day.
For a long time this technology was allowing the Democrats to delegitimize opposition by
convincing large numbers of Americans that Republicans are
Haters
Racists
Fascists
Deniers of science
Destroyers of the environment
Heartless sellouts to corporate interests
And so on - the list is endless.
The Soviet communists had aptly named it "disinformation," which a cut above the English
word "misinformation." It includes a variety of methods for a variety of needs, from bringing
down an opponent to revising history to creating a new historical reality altogether. In this
sense, most Hollywood movies on historical subjects today disinform us about history,
supplanting it with a bogus "progressive" narrative. The Soviet term for such art was
"socialist realism."
Long story short, the Democrat-media complex has successfully convinced one half of the
world that Trump is a Russian agent. Now they're acting as if they'd spent the last three years
in a coma, unaware of any bombshell stories about collusion. And bombshell stories without any
continuation are a telltale sign of fake narratives. The only consequence of these bombshells
is mass amnesia among the foot soldiers.
The Trump-Russian outrage is dead, long live the Trump-Ukraine outrage. And when that
outrage is dead, the next outrage that will be just outrageous.
The current impeachment narrative alleges that Trump used military aid as leverage in asking
Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden (which implies the Democrats know Biden is dirty, otherwise
why bother?). What's not in this picture is CrowdStrike. Even though Trump mentioned it in the
phone call, it has nothing to do with the Bidens nor the Javelin missiles. CrowdStrike has
nothing to do with impeachment. We're told it's just a silly conspiracy theory in Trump's head,
that it's a nonissue.
But then why fabricate fake news about it and plant blatant lies simultaneously in all media
outlets from Mother Jones to Fox News? Why risk being exposed over such a nonissue? Perhaps
because it's more important than the story suggests.
Only a computer illiterate would think that CrowdStrike needed to take the physical DNC
server to Ukraine in order to analyze it. Any computer can be cloned and its digital image can
be sent within minutes anywhere on the planet in the form of ones and zeroes. It can also exist
in multiple digital copies, carrying not just confidential archives, but also history logs and
other content that can reveal to an expert whether the hacking occurred, and if so, by
whom.
The copies of the DNC server on CrowdStrike computers are likely to hold the key to
understanding what really happened during the 2016 election, the origin of the anti-Trump witch
hunt, and the toxic cloud of lies that had been hanging over the world and poisoning minds
during the last three years.
And now the new Ukrainian government might subpoena these copies from CrowdStrike and
finally pass them to FBI experts, which should've been done three years ago. The danger of this
happening is a much greater incentive for the Democrats to preemptively destroy Trump than all
the dirt Joe Biden had been rolling in as Obama's vice president.
This gives the supposedly innocuous reference to CrowdStrike during Trump's call a lot more
gravity and the previously incoherent part of the transcript begins to make sense.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been
through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened
with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say CrowdStrike... I guess you have one of your
wealthy people... The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went
on, the whole situation.
If you read the transcript on the day it was released, you probably didn't understand what
Trump was even talking about, let alone what had caused such a disproportionate outrage,
complete with whistle blowing and calls for impeachment. What in that mild conversation could
possibly terrify the Democrats so much? They were terrified because, unlike most Americans, the
Democrats knew exactly what Trump was talking about. And now you know, too.
The fraudulent "CrowdStrike conspiracy" deflection is not a show of the Democrats'
strength. Instead, It betrays their desperation and panic, which tells us that Trump is
squarely over the target.
It also helps us to see who at Fox News can be trusted to tell us the truth. And it ain't
Chris Wallace.
Fine dissection of the CrowdStrike story. Of course if the DNC was serious about
finding out who breached their security they would have allowed the FBI to investigate.
They didn't - which means they're covering something up.
And who doesn't have at least one backup system running constantly, I have two and am
just a home user and the DNC would not have been dumb enough not to have one on the
premises and one off site for safety and preservation and the FBI could have gotten to
either one if they wanted to. DWS was involved in something very similar and the FBI
backed off again. I thought the DNC and the FBI were on the same page and would have
liked to find out how the "transfer" happened?
Yet DOJ Mueller conclusively signed off on the unsubtaniated fact the Russians had
hacked the DNC computers in his final Weissman Report. Just one more part of the curious Mueller report that was far more a CYA hit piece
against future claims of Obama crimes, than an investigation of past Trump ones.
Seth Rich - paper trail to Wikilinks needs to come out in any Senate impeachment trail
since Democrats claim the Ukraine phone call was Trump's alleged downfall. CROWDSTRIKE
was the only favor Trumps asked for.
There are two important facts to glean from this article:
1) Crowdstrike, the DNC contractor, is Ukrainian
2) that the famous server may have been backed up in Ukraine and not tampered with.
From the MSM we were given the 'interpretation' that Trump is an idiot who believes
that the DNC shipped the server with no changes to the Ukraine. No folks. He 'gets'
technology and security. He actual ran a business! (imagine).
I'd love to hear that in Hillary's own voice. :) You know, cleaned with a cloth?
That pretty much sums it up. MSM in total cahoots on this too since they put the
entire topic of the CROWDSTRIKE part of the phone call into the cone of silence.
The Left and media (One and the same within the "Deep State") have been playing "Three
Card Monte" with America for a while; it stops now!
The "Impeachment" media show being run by the Lefty tool cretins in the House has
NOTHING to do with wrong doing by President Trump. It has EVERYTHING to do with the fear
that President Trump will expose the depth of the swamp and bring the criminals on the
Left down to Justice!
We are s close to getting to the bottom of the conspiracies that threaten our nation.
Time to make the America haters pay for the harm they have done to our nation!
We need open and in depth prosecution of the criminal activities of the Left. There
needs to be LONG prison sentences and, yes, even executions for those that seek to
undermine our nation.
People need to know that there our GRAVE penalties for betraying our nation!
In fact, when I first heard this story - that is: very recently - I was puzzled: why
should a major party in the Country that invented IT and is still at its leading edge,
ask an obscure firm of a crumbling, remote foreign State to do their IT security
research? I'm not saying that Ukraine is a s++thole Country, but... you get me.
Either they have very much to hide, or they fear some closeted rightwing geek that works
in any of the many leftist US technofirms. Or, CrowdStrike were involved from the
beginning of the story, from the Steele dossier perhaps?
The whole Crowdstrike fiasco has been around for years - plus became a solid CYA part
of the Mueller report too - just in case the Democrats needed to bury it later.
don't you get it? The DNC is completely infiltrated by Ukrainian graft. Even Joe Biden
was on the take. Why won't they run their IT? (there is no Research in IT here, just
office software)
If you want to sell and deliver State Secrets and Intel to our enemies, then you
(Obama, the Clintons, the DNC) simply make it easier for THEM to access. They have done
this for years, and this is why they had to fill the DOJ, the FBI and the State
Department with traitors and haters of America and American principles. Barack Hussein
Obama, the Clintons, their evil administrations and even two-faced RINOS like McCain,
Romney, and Jeff Sessions were actively involved. This is treason pure and simple, and
all of the above could be legitimately and justifiably hung or shot without recourse, and
rightly so!
I have known about "Crowdstrike" since Dec. 2017. Pres. Trump is just subtlety
introducing background on what will be the biggest story of treachery, subversion,
treason and corruption ever. QAnon that the fakenews tries to vilify as a LARP has been
dropping crumbs about "Crowdstrike", Perkins Coir, Fusion GPS, FVEY and so much more!
Crowdstrike mentioned 7x in the last 2 years. I can't urge people enough to actually
investigate the Q posts for themselves! You will be stunned at what you have been
missing. Q which says "future proves past" and "news will unlock" what I see in the media
now is old news to those of us following Q. Q told us that "Senate was the prize" "Senate
meant more" that the investigations started in the House would now move to the Senate and
all this that the Dems and Rinos have been trying to hide is going to be exposed.
Fakenews corporate media has litterally written hundreds of hit pieces against Q - me
knows "they doth protest to much" - Recent Q post told "Chairman Graham its time. Senate
was the target"
Keep up with the Q posts and Pres. Trump's tweets in once place:
https://qmap.pub/ - And if you are still having a hard time believing this is legit
Pres. Trump himself has confirmed Q posts by "Zero Delta" drops - if you think this is
fake - try and tweet within 1 minute of when Pres. Trump does BUT your tweet has to
anticipate his! YOU have to tweet first and HE has to follow you within 1 minute.
MATHEMATICAL IMPOSSIBILITY UNLESS you are in the same immediate space or communicating at
the time of the tweets! To all you doubters that think Q is just a by chance scam - NO
WAY. There have been MANY, MANY of these ZERO DELTA PROOFS over the last 2 years. The
most recent was Nov. 20th.
Crowdstrike in the dog who did not bark. The Democrat cone of silence they put on even
the mention of the word has been the most damning clue this is where the real action
is.
The assertion that a digital image of the computer can be transmitted quickly all
around the world is not necessarily correct in my experience as a cyber security analyst.
I'm not an upper echelon type, but I am aware that it can take up to weeks to transmit
such images depending on the hard disk, where it is, and the connections/network to your
device creating the image. The FBI should have physically taken the device since there
was a suspicion of wrong doing by Hillary Clinton. Had it been Donald Trump's computer I
do not doubt the FBI would either have imaged it on the spot or taken the device.
Last night I completely removed Catalina-Safari on my older Mac Book Air and
re-installed Mohave-Safari from my backup to the day before I installed Catalina
including the data and system just like it was before. It took around 5 hours and was
cabled and not on Wi-Fi and it was perfect and reset the clock, my old e-mails and the
newer ones as well. I can't believe being hooked into real broadband or fiber couldn't do
the same in a relatively short period of time, but still significantly longer than a
thumb drive or external hard drive.
One variable is how big your hard drive is. If it is a big drive at a remote location,
say somewhere in California to the Midwest, it can take weeks for a forensic backup. I
only say that because . . . well, I'm not allowed to say. But you get it.
The assertion is a figure of speech. Today's IT infrastructure companies sell the
service of maintaining clones in real-time in two or more locations for safety purposes.
VMware and other off-the-shelf products makes this kind of setup easy to deploy. Did
Crowdstrike offer that service and did the DNC buy it, that is the question? And, if so,
did Crowdstrike keep the image on their backups in Ukraine?
(Note: it is not obvious that such a setup would preserve the forensic data the FBI would
be looking for, but its a start).
WSJ columnist today raises an old obscure issue today about the Clinton emails and Comey's
calculated exoneration of Clinton's culpability.
This story reopens the claim Comey had a report there was an email exchange between
Loretta Lynch and Clinton claiming Lynch promised her the DOJ would go easy on Clinton. Comey
claimed when confronted with this memo, Lynch merely smiled like the Cheshire cat and nothing
more was done.
This memo was later discredited as an alleged planted Russian hoax. Yet the memo story is
again put in lead position on the opinion pages of the WSJ this very morning. Why was that?
Not clear, but does the author think this alleged Lynch-Clinton campaign exchange will be
part of the upcoming Horowitz report?
(WSJ: 11/27/19 - Holman Jenkins, Jr. - "Who will turn over the 2016 rocks")
Will IG Horowitz Drop the Hammer on the FBI For FISA Abuse? by Larry C Johnson
There is great impatience, even frustration, over the slow roll out of the results of
Inspector General Horowitz's investigation of the FBI's use of FISA. From what we already know
from the public record, there was clear abuse and even criminal conduct by former FBI Director
Jim Comey and his Deputy, Andy McCabe. They claimed in a filing with the FISA court that the
Steele Dossier was verified. Yet, Jim Comey subsequently testified under oath before Congress
that the so-called Dossier was "unverified." Okay Jimmy, which is it?
We have some clues that Horowitz is not doing a whitewash. Reports last week, based in part
on the whining of people reportedly linked to Comey and McCabe and others at the FBI and DOJ,
stated that persons substantively discussed in the report were given the chance to review their
portion of the report but they had to do so after signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement and were
not permitted to submit written responses.
Then we have Attorney General Barr's speech last Friday to the Federalist Society. You can
read the full transcript at
The Conservative Treehouse . It is magnificent. Barr understands that there has been an
attempted coup against the Presidency of Donald Trump. Here are some key excerpts:
As I have said, the Framers fully expected intense pulling and hauling between the Congress
and the President. Unfortunately, just in the past few years, we have seen these conflicts take
on an entirely new character.
Immediately after President Trump won election, opponents inaugurated what they called "The
Resistance," and they rallied around an explicit strategy of using every tool and maneuver
available to sabotage the functioning of his Administration. Now, "resistance" is the language
used to describe insurgency against rule imposed by an occupying military power. It obviously
connotes that the government is not legitimate. This is a very dangerous – indeed
incendiary – notion to import into the politics of a democratic republic. What it means
is that, instead of viewing themselves as the "loyal opposition," as opposing parties have done
in the past, they essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple, by any means
necessary, a duly elected government.
A prime example of this is the Senate's unprecedented abuse of the advice-and-consent
process. The Senate is free to exercise that power to reject unqualified nominees, but that
power was never intended to allow the Senate to systematically oppose and draw out the approval
process for every appointee so as to prevent the President from building a functional
government.
Yet that is precisely what the Senate minority has done from his very first days in office.
As of September of this year, the Senate had been forced to invoke cloture on 236 Trump
nominees -- each of those representing its own massive consumption of legislative time meant
only to delay an inevitable confirmation. How many times was cloture invoked on nominees during
President Obama's first term? 17 times. The Second President Bush's first term? Four times. It
is reasonable to wonder whether a future President will actually be able to form a functioning
administration if his or her party does not hold the Senate. . . .
The costs of this constant harassment are real. For example, we all understand that
confidential communications and a private, internal deliberative process are essential for all
of our branches of government to properly function. Congress and the Judiciary know this well,
as both have taken great pains to shield their own internal communications from public
inspection. There is no FOIA for Congress or the Courts. Yet Congress has happily created a
regime that allows the public to seek whatever documents it wants from the Executive Branch at
the same time that individual congressional committees spend their days trying to publicize the
Executive's internal decisional process. That process cannot function properly if it is public,
nor is it productive to have our government devoting enormous resources to squabbling about
what becomes public and when, rather than doing the work of the people. . . .
One of the ironies of today is that those who oppose this President constantly accuse this
Administration of "shredding" constitutional norms and waging a war on the rule of law. When I
ask my friends on the other side, what exactly are you referring to? I get vacuous stares,
followed by sputtering about the Travel Ban or some such thing. While the President has
certainly thrown out the traditional Beltway playbook, he was upfront about that beforehand,
and the people voted for him. What I am talking about today are fundamental constitutional
precepts. The fact is that this Administration's policy initiatives and proposed rules,
including the Travel Ban, have transgressed neither constitutional, nor traditional, norms, and
have been amply supported by the law and patiently litigated through the Court system to
vindication.
Indeed, measures undertaken by this Administration seem a bit tame when compared to some of
the unprecedented steps taken by the Obama Administration's aggressive exercises of Executive
power – such as, under its DACA program, refusing to enforce broad swathes of immigration
law.
The fact of the matter is that, in waging a scorched earth, no-holds-barred war of
"Resistance" against this Administration, it is the Left that is engaged in the systematic
shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law. This highlights a basic disadvantage
that conservatives have always had in contesting the political issues of the day. It was
adverted to by the old, curmudgeonly Federalist, Fisher Ames, in an essay during the early
years of the Republic.
Bill Barr's speech is a reminder that we still have men and women of integrity and wisdom
battling in the public sphere to uphold the essence of our Republic. Barr's speech laid down a
very clear marker of how he sees this battle for the soul of America. He is a man grounded in
the law and committed to upholding it. He understands that justice must be blind and applied
without bias if the fabric of this country is to remain intact.
We will know in the coming weeks if Barr delivers. I think he will. I have bet a bottle of
fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level people will be indicted. I hope
for the sake of our country I am right. And if I am right, I am still going to buy that hero a
bottle of fine bourbon.
It was a fine speech, but it was made to a private audience and not reported to any
significant degree by the media. I saw nothing in it to give me any hope that actual action
will be taken against those who are participating in the coup against the properly elected
president of this nation.
The size of the forum seems less important to me than the quality of audience members.
Were the founders of the US Republic many? Were they insignificant people? Were they
ignorant of their own faults and the likely faults of their interlocutors?
The reaction to Barr's comments will be telling in real time. Not TV or internet instant
demand reaction time. Cattle are not the only creatures which have to ruminate, I think. The
implications of Barr's remarks have to be digested by folks accustomed to being surrounded by
lackeys.
AG Barr's speech is definitely worth one's time to watch/listen or read. It's an excellent
history lesson not to mention a kick in the radical Left's derriere.
It seems many in the alt news arena are placing bets on the IG's Report as well but I
haven't seen a fine bottle of bourbon as the prize...very classy. If I were to place a bet my
money would be on the IG fully exposing the entirety of this coup cooked up by Brennan
(approved by Obama), simmered by Comey and team then carried out by the Resistance cadre.
It's unimaginable to believe Horowitz, let alone Barr, would whitewash or go half way when
detailing such an extremely significant political event in our countries history. It's also
impossible to right any of this mess without full disclosure which then must lead to holding
accountable those who deliberately intended to harm this country and The President.
Here's to hoping Barr/Horowitz and team adhere to the DOJ/FBI's motto - Fidelity, Bravery,
Integrity...
Yes, you are quite right. And very nicely put. I have had a grubby kind of adult life keeping
one eye out for cheap, acceptable booze. So I emitted a kind of inadvertent Rorshach.
Besides, I think the fiery, precious Kaintuck will be shared among a group of very smart,
worldly wise, and hard old spooky guv'mint guys, sometime after Thanksgiving. Like a meeting
of the Norwegian Resistance. To be a fly on the wall as to the toasts...
Altho multiple bets are possible, I agree with tidewater -
"I have a side bet with a friend. I no longer believe that the duopoly of parties in the
US will indict anyone over the matter of this article.
I hope I lose the bet." pl (Nov 17 2019)
"I have bet a bottle of fine bourbon with a wise hero of our Republic that high level
people will be indicted. " - LJ (Nov 19 2019)
I will be 78 on the 31st. I attribute my longevity to; the right genes. a robust outdoor
life in youth, and a steady regime of cigars, bourbon and red meat. pl (May 25 2018)
However a commenter named Jack did once mention getting Pappy's for his birthday.
However, your memory is correct, I did receive a bottle of Pappy's for my birthday some
moons ago before it went cult. SWMBO paid $95 for it then. As you can see from Tidewater's
comment the price has escalated significantly if you can even snag one from a retailer that
can get an allocation from the wholesaler. It sure is a fine bourbon. Craft spirits have
definitely pushed the envelope on quality and there are now many fine spirits available.
Ah so!, as Mr. Moto would say. I see. "How do you know that?" A question oft asked in one
of the past vocations, as I recall. Well, I didn't know, actually. Careless. (Was this a
little lesson in close reading?) And there was one glitch in the profile that did puzzle me
and should have been a caution. Though I was bedazzled by a lot of surprising insights into
the amber which I knew as Rebel Yell or Virginia Gentleman (from A. Smith Bowman who I just
found out had the first name of Abram) from the time that I never had hangovers, till the
time that I did, when I had to give bourbon up, switch to Scotch, and then had to give that
up too, move on to the grape, where I should have been to begin with. (Though it always took
me three glasses of jug wine and a little gagging before I got right with it. And then one
day the wine in the groceries, like the peanuts, and the cheese, got a lot better.)
It was the Kaintuck angle that I should have noticed. That was not in the profile as
developed. Still the glitch could be overlooked as a kind of grunt-ish foible, maybe. Or
would have to do with the more er rambunctious LJ than his SST pix indicates, or perhaps the
old stomping grounds. Appropriately symbolic, too. Camp on the Watauga, Hannah's Cowpens,
King's Mountain, the Presbyterian invention of the pew (to slide out of in a hurry), the
origin of the Rangers, the steady Overhill militia at Guilford Court House with homemade
rifles lined up on the lowest rail of the split rail fence. And bourbon went there with them,
I think that is certain enough.
Still, what the profile suggested to me was that it should have been a bet about
something, say, from the Haut Medoc, perhaps a bottle of Chateau Petrus from Pomerol
(Bordeux) maybe about 2012, and not the 1945 (a new Mercedes), just something more reasonable
I see knocked down at $2499.99 at one loci. Or a Domaine Leroy Chambertin Grand Cru Cote de
Nuits (Burgundy) for $1400.00. That could be considered gruntish, too. Napoleon is said to
have drunk Chambertin every day. If he wasn't allowed to get it shipped in to him on St.
Helena it wasn't the intense humidity of the rainy island climate on the arsenic in the
wallpaper that did for him. And that would be really perfidious. Though thinking about it, I
can see his jailors finding the steady predictable arrival of the Chambertin by mail packet
like from Chewy.com a good thing for one and all...
Maybe I am right about this one, though: Someone here has a bet with Mr. William
Binney.
Napoleon either did a lot of entertaining on St Helena or he hit the bottle seriously hard.
He had hogsheads of Constantia wine delivered from nearby Groot Constantia to the amount of
thirty bottles a month. Other sources say two or three bottles a day. "A floral desert wine
that, 200 years ago, was one of the most sought after of its day. Crates were shipped to the
royal courts of Europe". (Alex Perry, "The Rift".)
The sales pitch quotes Jane Austen as warranting its "healing powers on a disappointed
heart" but I reckon those healing powers would have to be quite something to make up for that
final cry of "La Garde Recule!"
I liked your alcoholic Odyssey above. May it long continue.
For a bit there I thought Groot Constantia was an island near St. Helena that I had never
heard of! I looked up Cape Town--Constantia on Wiki and got the picture. So the Dutch were
making a good wine in Constantia by the mid-seventeenth century. Nineteen hundred miles seems
to me not nearby, though I admit it is a routine passage for a sailing ship. Lot of sugar in
a dessert wine. Thank you for your comments.
Did you ever hear the story that the Napoleon at St. Helena out there in the Atlantic off
the Namibia coast was a double? The real Napoleon made his escape to the other St. Helena
Island, in Beaufort County, South Carolina, according to Gullah legend.
I doubt that on the grounds that if he'd made it to the States the US would now stretch from
Siberia to Tierra del Fuego. A great captain, Napoleon, and had rotten luck at Waterloo. A
damn close run thing indeed.
Trouble is he was also a complete bastard and very light on the touchy-feely stuff. You
get that sort on the Continent every now and again so we have to go over regularly and sort
them out. Gets to be a bore but Noblesse Oblige and all that.
Put that last in in case Vig, who may just possibly be LeaNder though the style's
slightly different, wants some English Exceptionalism to knock.
On the drinks front I have to confess to being a complete fraud, from the viewpoint of the
average SSTer with his or her well stocked cellar. At present I'm occupied with palming off
some decidedly weird home brewed cider on unsuspecting guests. Not always successfully. My
home brewed beer's OK though. Compares well with German beer, which is for me the Gold
Standard. A decent Single Malt every now and again and that's about it.
So I can admire your Odyssey, and the recollections that go with it, but not emulate
it.
The proof will be in the pudding. It seems the IG report will be released after
Thanksgiving. Considering the previous report that Horowitz issued where the executive
summary said something similar to Comey's exoneration of Hillary, it will be interesting to
see the tone of this report.
Barr made a fine speech but talk is cheap. What has he done to clean up his own
department? Roger Stone was arrested by a SWAT team in a dramatic made for TV show and has
now been convicted of lying. Why hasn't the same standard been applied to all the muckety
mucks in DC?
I don't think I've ever seen such an impressive overview of the constitutional background
before. It applies to both sides of the Atlantic but more chance of it resulting in something
concrete on yours. The video contains some interesting asides that are not in the printed
transcript, in particular a reference to Trump's style of leadership and a dig at the
convoluted legislation that sometimes emerges from Congress.
I was more interested in the constitutional implications of the lecture, but your article
above poses the urgent question arising from it. AG Barr has nailed his colours to the mast
and cleared the decks for action. Is that all, or will action follow?
Obama perfected Cloward-Pivens strategies to get what he wanted starting back in 2008.
Obama storm-troopers would over-whelm local elections offices flooding them the voter
registration requests they knew included fake registrations, just in order to prevent proper
vetting of each registrant which allowed a lot of fraudulent voters to get a free pass.
Cloward-Pivens is intended to overwhelm a system "legally" to render it ineffectual. They
are doing the same now with "expanded" voting rights like vote-harvesting and same day
registration.
Just one more part of the Democrats use of Saul Alinksy Rules for Radicals. Glad Barr
pointed all of this intentionally obstructionist out in such direct and data backed terms. We
indeed are a fragile republic - losing a shared ethical common denominator every day -
diversity is not our strength - in fact, it exposes our endemic weaknesses the more we move
from the Founders values into third world values.
Probably. Colonel, that guess results from putting two and two together about a bet you also
made a little while ago, the one you are hoping to lose. I wouldn't say that constitutes
proof but there's definitely a smoking gun there.
'If' the 'Establishment' [aka Deep state] decided to prosecute its own, it would have been
setting a dangerous precedence for themselves, and I fear that is the reason for the slow,
s-l-o-w roll out, instead of prompt arrest, jail, prosecute, and upon conviction they become
Bubb'a shower soap.
I hate to say it, but I fear that the Colonel is right, nothing will be done with all
this. It's all circus meant to distract us and get our hopes up.
I hope you win your bet Larry. Without enforcement, what good are laws?
And I swear, if the malefactors get away with what they've done, at the very least I'll
join others to march on Washington in protest. Wars aside, this is THE worst political
scandal of my lifetime - a nightmare come true of the US government at its most corrupt and
tyrannical.
"... It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news. There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of "conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with a twisted twist. ..."
"... The Council on Foreign Relations ..."
"... Foreign Affairs, ..."
"... Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations. ..."
"... To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is plain idiocy and plainer propaganda. ..."
It gets funny, this shallow analysis of the deep state that is currently big news.
There's something ghoulish about it, perfectly timed for Halloween and masked jokers. What
was once ridiculed by the CIA and its attendant lackeys in the media as the paranoia of
"conspiracy theorists" is now openly admitted in reverent tones of patriotic fervor. But with
a twisted twist.
The corporate mass-media has recently discovered a "deep state" that they claim to be not
some evil group of assassins who work for the super-rich owners of the country and murder
their own president (JFK) and other unpatriotic dissidents (Malcom X, MLK, RK, among others)
and undermine democracy home and abroad, but are now said to be just fine upstanding American
citizens who work within the government bureaucracies and are patriotic believers in
democracy intent on doing the right thing.
This redefinition has been in the works for a few years, and it shouldn't be a surprise
that this tricky treat was being prepared for our consumption a few years ago by The
Council on Foreign Relations . In its September/October 2017 edition of its journal
Foreign Affairs, Jon D. Michaels, in "Trump and the Deep State: The Government
Strikes Back," writes:
Furious at what they consider treachery by internal saboteurs, the president and his
surrogates have responded by borrowing a bit of political science jargon, claiming to be
victims of the " deep state ," a
conspiracy of powerful, unelected bureaucrats secretly pursuing their own agenda. The
concept of a deep state is valuable in its original context, the study of developing
countries such as Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where shadowy elites in the military and
government ministries have been known to countermand or simply defy democratic directives.
Yet it has little relevance to the United States, where governmental power structures are
almost entirely transparent, egalitarian, and rule-bound.
The White House is correct to perceive widespread resistance inside the government to
many of its endeavors. But the same way the administration's media problems come not from
"fake news" but simply from news, so its bureaucratic problems come not from an insidious,
undemocratic "deep state" but simply from the state -- the large, complex hive of people
and procedures that constitute the U.S. federal government.
Notice how in these comical passages about U.S. government transparency and
egalitarianism, Michaels slyly and falsely attributes to Trump the very definition –
"unelected bureaucrats" – that in the next paragraph he claims to be the real deep
state, which is just the state power structures. Pseudo-innocence conquers all here as there
is no mention of the Democratic party, Russiagate, etc., and all the machinations led by the
intelligence services and Democratic forces to oust Trump from the day he was elected. State
power structures just move so quickly, as anyone knows who has studied the speed with which
bureaucracies operate. Ask Max Weber.
Drip by drip over the past few years, this "state bureaucracy" meme has been introduced by
the mainstream media propagandists as they have gradually revealed that the government
deep-staters are just doing their patriotic duty in trying openly to oust an elected
president.
Many writers have commented on the recent New York Times article, Trump's
War on the 'Deep State' Turns Against Him" asserting that the Times has finally admitted
to the existence of the deep state, which is true as far as it goes, which is not too far.
But in this game of deceptive revelations – going shallower to go deeper – what
is missing is a focus on the linguistic mind control involved in the changed definition.
In a recent article by Robert W. Merry, whose intentions I am not questioning –
"New York
Times Confirms: It's Trump Versus the Deep State" – originally published at The
American Conservative and widely reprinted , the lead-in to the article proper
reads: "Even the Gray Lady admits the president is up against a powerful bureaucracy that
wants him sunk." So the "powerful bureaucracy" redefinition, this immovable force of
government bureaucrats, is slipped into public consciousness as what the deep state
supposedly is. Gone are CIA conspirators and evil doers. In their place we find career civil
servants doing their patriotic duty.
Then there is The New York Times' columnist James Stewart who, appearing on the
Today Show recently, where he was promoting his new book, told Savannah Guthrie
that:
Well, you meet these characters in my book, and the fact is, in a sense, he's [Trump]
right. There is a deep state there is a bureaucracy in our country who has pledged to
respect the Constitution, respect the rule of law. They do not work for the President. They
work for the American people. And, as Comey told me in my book, 'thank goodness for that,'
because they are protecting the Constitution and the people when individuals – we
don't have a monarch, we don't have a dictator – they restrain them from crossing the
boundaries of law. What Trump calls the deep state in the United States is protecting the
American people and protecting the Constitution. It's a positive thing in this sense.
So again we are told that the deep-state bureaucracy is defending the Constitution and
protecting the American people, as James Comey told Stewart, "in my book, 'thank goodness for
that,'" as he put it so eloquently. These guys talk in books, of course, not person to
person, but that is the level not just of English grammar and general stupidity, but of the
brazen bullshit these guys are capable of.
This new and shallow deep state definition has buried the old meaning of the deep state as
evil conspirators carrying out coup d'états, assassinations, and massive media
propaganda campaigns at home and abroad, and who, by implication and direct declaration,
never existed in the good old U.S.A. but only in countries such as Egypt, Turkey, and
Pakistan where shadowy elites killed and deposed leaders and opponents in an endless series
of coup d'états. No mention in Foreign Affairs , of course, of the American
support for the ruthless leaders of these countries who have always been our dear allies when
they obey our every order and serve as our servile proxies in murder and mayhem.
Even Edward Snowden , the courageous whistleblower in exile in Russia, in a recent
interview
with Joe Rogan , repeats this nonsense when he says the deep state is just "career government
officials" who want to keep their jobs and who outlast presidents. From his own experience,
he should know better. Much better. Interestingly, he suggests that he does when he tells
Rogan that "every president since Kennedy" has been successfully "feared up" by the
intelligence agencies so they will do their bidding. He doesn't need to add that JFK, for
fearlessly refusing the bait, was shot in the head in broad daylight to send a message to
those who would follow.
Linguistic mind control is insidious like the slow drip of a water faucet. After a while
you don't hear it and just go about your business, even as your mind, like a rotting rubber
washer, keeps disintegrating under propaganda's endless reiterations.
To think that the deep state is government employees just doing their patriotic duty is
plain idiocy and plainer propaganda.
It is a trick, not the treat it is made to seem.
*
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Distinguished author and sociologist Edward Curtin is a Research Associate of the
Centre for Research on Globalization. Visit the author's website
here .
Regardless of what do you think about Donald Trump, what intelligence community did was a plain vanilla coup d'état approved by Obama
and coordinated by run by Brennan faction in CIA. With active participation of factions of FBI (Counterintelligence department),
Department of Justice (several highly placed officials) and State Department (which is a real neocon vipers nest so the majority of high level officials,
especially connected with the Ukrainian color revolution participated) eagerly participated in the coup.
They left too many fingerprints in this and now Barr hopefully will brings some individuals to justice for this coup.
Notable quotes:
"... I was fortunate to participate in a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community. ..."
I was fortunate to participate in
a forum in August sponsored by the Ron Paul Institute. Here is my presentation on the attempted
coup by US Law Enforcement and the Intelligence Community.
... ship had hit the lies-berg at whopping 65 knots, thus sustaining a massive,
catastrophic damage... The $hit has hit Hillary's email server's cooling fan in earnest and
we are tankin' faster than the consumer confidence index.
Please proceed to evacuate in orderly fashion along the decks toward the ship's stern,
where you will be able to board the lifeboats. Bill and Chelsea, Debbie Wasserhead-Schulz,
Donna Crayzille, George Sorosh, Madeleine Nobright and yours truly will have the boarding
priority, followed (in this particular order) by the filthy rich Wall Street investors,
followed by hedge-fund managers, followed by Saudi princes and princesses, followed by
Hollywood celebrities, followed by Islamic mujahedeen, followed by media cronies and
kneecap-smashers, followed by IMF and World Bank officials, followed by the skulls &
boners, followed by the illuminati, followed by world's tyrants and mass-murderers, followed
by neoliberal and neoconservative cabal, followed by the military-industrial lobby, followed
by the prison lobby, followed by the global kleptocracy, followed by the globalist mafia,
followed by Blackwater officials, followed by Bhig Phat Pharma, followed by Academia
sycophants, followed by the MTV, CNN, CBS and other fake news, followed by assorted humanists
and "philanhropists", followed by Cher and Barbra Straisand and finally, followed by Barack
and Michelle, Chuck & Nancy and Adam "Shifty" Schiff & Johnny Bolton. The remaining
rats and rodents can simply jump the ship, no boats needed.
Women and children last.
For your listening pleasure, the band will continue to play "Some Enchanted Evening" until
the last rodent is safely evacuated.
James Comey slumps strategically in restaurants -- all 6-foot-8 of him, drooping
faux-furtively with his back to the room -- and daydreams about deleting the civic-minded
Twitter feed where a bipartisan coalition pronounces him a national disgrace.
He sleeps soundly -- nine hours a night, he ballparks -- and organizes the self-described
"unemployed celebrity" chapter of his life around a series of workaday goals. "One of my
goals has been to get to 10 consecutive pull-ups," Mr. Comey said in an interview, legs
crossed on the back porch of his stately Virginia home. "I'm at nine now. So, I've been doing
a lot of pull-ups."
He writes and thinks and reads and worries from a tidy downstairs office surrounded by the
trinkets of his past: the White House place card from the night President Trump asked for his
"loyalty" as F.B.I. director; a book by Nate Silver, the political data whiz who believes Mr.
Comey's explosively ambiguous letter in October 2016 about the Hillary Clinton email
investigation probably handed Mr. Trump the election; a page from a quote-of-the-day
calendar, saved for its resonance: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately
explained by stupidity."
"It reminds me so much of the F.B.I.," Mr. Comey said.
But then, a lot of things have lately. Another Trump-branded election interference scandal
is upon us. Institutions are wobbling. And Mr. Comey, as ever, cannot fight a nagging
conviction about it all: James Comey can help. He must help.
"I feel stuck," he said. "Like I can't do something else. And I couldn't look myself in
the mirror if I went and did something easy."
What he is doing, exactly, is not entirely clear even to him. Rather than proceed with the
standard arc of an erstwhile intelligence leader -- think tanks, corporate boards, studied
political silence -- Mr. Comey has pledged to spend the next 13 months working to drive Mr.
Trump from power.
The former F.B.I. director, a lover of order, sees little of it in a norm-smashing
president spiraling toward impeachment, riffing on "sick and deranged" Democrats at a recent
rally and playacting the dialogue of F.B.I. officials like an insult comic. In this concern,
Mr. Comey has ample company. In this company, he carries a kind of customized psychic
baggage.
Who can know how it feels to wonder, to have everyone you meet wonder, if the president is
standing behind that seal because of you?
"Thanks for giving us Donald Trump," an older woman heckled recently, adding an expletive
as Mr. Comey strolled through a Yale Law School building, where he had come for a talk that
focused largely on his fateful 2016 decisions and attendant personal anguish.
"Thank you for the feedback," he told her.
Divorced from its singular context, Mr. Comey's condition is somewhat typical of the
wandering urgency with which many presidential critics are approaching the 2020 election.
Last year's season of midterm activism has given way to a long electoral winter of Democratic
primary skirmishes and an emphasis on just a few early-voting states, leaving Trump opponents
to wrestle with how to contribute amid a gush of executive outrages they feel powerless to
counteract.
Lawmakers can impeach. Whistle-blowers whistle-blow. What of the private citizen,
determined to live publicly?
"It's hard for people who've had a lot of power to come to terms with the fact that
there's actually very little you can do when you're not a candidate," said Jennifer Palmieri,
a former top aide to Mrs. Clinton. "Or the F.B.I. director."
While short on formal authority, Mr. Comey has suffered no deficiency of platforms. He
says he has signed a contract to write opinion pieces for The Washington Post. He is the
subject of an upcoming mini-series, starring Jeff Daniels as Mr. Comey, based on his
best-selling memoir. He travels the country giving speeches on ethical leadership, mixing pro
bono appearances on college campuses with paid bookings that command a six-figure fee. ("It's
a lot!" Mr. Comey enthused, while declining to name his precise rate. "Seriously, it's
crazy.")
Over nearly two hours last month at his Northern Virginia home, whose coordinates he
prefers not to publicize given the president's affection for lathering up supporters with
tales of "Leakin' Lyin' James Comey," the former F.B.I. director could register as a spindly
contradiction. He is at once a just-the-facts lawman and a prodigious feeler of feelings,
introspective about the size of his ego and incapable of suppressing it entirely.
He says he is "not that important in the great sweep of American history" but believes his
firsthand view into the president's psyche can offer uncommon value to the anti-Trump
movement. He can hold forth in one breath on the humbling task of bird-feeder maintenance and
in another invoke the teachings of the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. He says "dude" a lot.
At times, Mr. Comey can sound as if he is suggesting that the Twitter account from which
he slings grave warnings and measured hope ("This country is so much better than this
president") is yoked to the health of the nation.
"I have a fantasy about on January 21, 2021, deleting my Twitter and moving on to
something else," he said. "But until then, I can't."
Closure has eluded some of his audiences, too. They lard Mr. Comey's public events with
skeptical questions about his choices in 2016. The Justice Department's inspector general has
lashed Mr. Comey for "insubordinate" conduct during that period, accusing him of breaking
with longstanding policy by publicly discussing an investigation into Mrs. Clinton's use of a
private email server, including in a letter to Congress less than two weeks before the
election.
Mr. Comey has conceded that he may have allowed himself to be influenced subconsciously by
the political consensus that Mrs. Clinton would win. But he has betrayed no major regrets,
defending his chosen course as the best among bad options. "I wish like hell we hadn't been
involved," he said. He predicted that history would judge him kindly for prizing disclosure
over concealment (not, as some Clinton allies see it, opting for spectacle over
discretion).
Asked if he cared about how he would be remembered for the ages, Mr. Comey, 58, said, "I
was going to say I don't care. I'm sure I care a little," adding, "It frustrates me in
general that millions of people have a false impression of me. I wish they knew I was
funnier." ...
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is investigating the e-mail records of dozens of
current and former senior State Department officials who sent messages to then-Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton's private e-mail, reviving a politically toxic matter that overshadowed
the 2016 election, current and former officials said.
As many as 130 officials have been contacted in recent weeks by State Department
investigators -- a list that includes senior officials who reported directly to Clinton as
well as others in lower-level jobs whose e-mails were at some point relayed to her inbox,
said current and former State Department officials. Those targeted were notified that e-mails
they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now constitute potential security
violations, according to letters reviewed by The Washington Post.
State Department investigators began contacting the former officials about 18 months ago,
after President Trump's election, and then seemed to drop the effort before picking it up in
August, officials said.
Senior State Department officials said that they are following standard protocol in an
investigation that began during the latter days of the Obama administration and is nearing
completion. ...
The precise observation is: "negligently sent and misfiled e-mails containing sensitive
information are now properly labeled to protect national security."
The "notified that e-mails they sent years ago have been retroactively classified and now
constitute potential security violations"......
"Years ago" is uninteresting when you discuss sensitive information that a "classification
authority" must have labeled to protect national security.
"retroactively classified" is blatantly inaccurate. The sensitive information in those
e-mail should have been classified.
Boston Globe writer provides threbligs of disinformation to create an ill-informed
debate.
I have many years ago been involved in properly [re]classifying documents long after their
distribution!
I see too much Innuendo, with no substance in fact!
You should judge the press/Globe's misleading its readers, rather than name me a
bully.
I pointed to the arcane wording that clouds the validity of classifying documents that are
deemed a threat to national security.
The e-mails were damaging to national security when the widespread, neglectful workers in
Clinton state dept created them, using the word classified "now" is misleading!
In my opinion the WaPost, NYTimes and Boston Globe are creating angst with less than
accurate reporting.
Most readers know very little about "information" requiring controls to protect national
security, and could not see the attempt to mislead.
If one is looking for truth one needs to do a lot of background reading what is written in
the papers I refer to.
Fred: I do not read the Union Leader, Eagle Tribune, except maybe to see what is going on
with EEE or natural gas leaks in Merrimack Valley where public safety is sinking to third
world country status.
The truth of the matter is that while not completely diplomatic Ilsm is completely
right.
And he understand this problem deeper and better that many here. So his contributions do
have value.
It can't be denied that several high level State Department officials including but not
limited to Hillary behaved like a bunch of high school girls and endangered state secrets to
any determined opponent. Without any real necessary to do so, just out of their infinite
incompetence and arrogance.
Another fact of the matter is that IT personal in the State Department was bullied to the
extent that they can't perform their duties, because even for mediocre IT specialist it is
absolutely clear that what Hillary was doing is both extremely stupid and criminal.
The level of arrogance and incompetence of Hillary and her staff in IT security exceeds
anything imaginable. This is a classic "Shadow IT" story that will go in all textbooks on
email security.
I do not remember who, but one high ranking person (from NSA I think) told while being
interviewed by MSM honcho that he would stop respecting his opponents if they did not steal
all Hillary correspondence in real time (but why NSA did not prevented it is another
interesting question ;-)
If we abstract from the problem that the USA government has way too many secrets and
classify way too many things, the law is the law and Hillary should serve time in jail. No
question about that for any person who at some point in his life dealt with state or even
corporate level classified material.
BTW she should be prohibited from running as a criminal who voted for Iraq war in any
case.
Impunity is power, and as Lord Acton said, power corrupts ( Impunity Corrupts -
Antiwar.com ):
== quote == What, after all, is power? Is it simply the capacity to exert unjust force? The ability to
impress one's will upon the flesh or belongings of another? No, it's more than that.
Most anyone can wield unjust force. Anyone could walk out onto the street right now and
exert their will on somebody weaker: say, pushing over an old lady or stealing candy from a
baby. And the toughest, or most heavily-armed guy in town can strong-arm just about any other
single person.
But isolated incidents of aggression do not constitute power. The "reign" of the rogue
rampager is generally short-lived. It only lasts until the community recognizes him as the
menace to society that he is and neutralizes him.
Power isn't simply about the exertion of unjust force. It is about what happens next,
after the exertion. Does the perpetrator generally get away with, or not? Systematically
getting away with it – or impunity – is where power truly lies. And that is what
makes agents of the State different from any other bully. State agents can violate rights
with reliable impunity because a critical mass of the public considers the aggression of
state agents to be exceptionally legitimate. Impunity is power, and as Lord Acton said, power
corrupts. == end ==
"... "I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Papadopoulos replied according to his recent book , "Deep State Target." But what if he had instead chuckled or said something stupid in order to puff himself up? Based on previous FBI entrapment cases , the answer seems clear: after threatening him with prosecution, the bureau would have outfitted him with a wire so that he could bring down other campaign officials. It wouldn't have stopped until it snared the ultimate prize –Trump himself. ..."
"... Trump told reporters in May he wanted Australia's role to be investigated by the Justice Department. Comey's Trump Tower meeting was important because it led directly to the publication of the notorious dossier that would generate endless headlines and cripple the incoming Trump administration even though it was full of baloney. ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit them to the FBI for review. ..."
"... With the Electoral College and the Supreme Court already overturning the popular vote in two of the last five presidential elections, voters would have a fourth branch to contend with – the intelligence community. ..."
"... As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow at the height of the Russiagate madness: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community – they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." Had Comey succeeded in bringing down Trump, they may have had a seventh. ..."
Before the Trump Tower visit, Comey sat down with top FBI brass – Chief of Staff James
Rybicki, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, General Counsel James Baker, and others involved with
the Russiagate investigation – to strategize about the upcoming meeting.
Page 17 of the OIG report tells of what they were up to:
"Baker and McCabe said that they agreed that the briefing needed to be one-on-one, so that
Comey could present the 'salacious' information in the most discreet and least embarrassing
way. At the same time, we were told, they did not want the President-elect to perceive the
one-on-one briefing as an effort to hold information over him like a 'Hoover-esque type of
plot.' Witnesses interviewed by the OIG also said that they discussed Trump's potential
responses to being told about the 'salacious' information, including that Trump might make
statements about, or provide information of value to, the pending Russian interference
investigation."
As the final sentence shows, Comey's job was to confront Trump about the alleged 2013 Moscow
incident and see whether he would give the FBI reason to advance its Russiagate investigation
to a whole new level, that of the presidency itself.
This was the same approach the FBI would employ a couple of weeks later after listening in
on a telephone conversation between Mike Flynn and Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and not
liking what it heard about plans to bolster U.S.-Russian relations. The solution was to send a
couple of agents to quiz the newly-appointed national security adviser and see how he would
respond. After telling Flynn not to bother bringing along a lawyer because it was just a
friendly chat and "they wanted Flynn to be relaxed, and they were concerned that giving the
warnings might adversely affect the rapport" – as a follow-up memo
noted – the agents caught the ever-voluble Flynn fudging various details. Three weeks
later, he found himself out of office and in disgrace. Ten months after that, he was in federal
court pleading
guilty to making false and misleading statements.
Another Set-Up
Michael Horowitz, the Justice Department's inspector general. (Wikimedia Commons)
Now we know from the OIG report that this was apparently the goal with regard to Trump.
Russiagate began nine months earlier with a smallarmy of intelligence agents buzzing around
a naïve young Trump adviser named George Papadopoulos. [See " Spooks Spooking
Themselves ," May 31, 2018.] An Anglo-Maltese academic named Joseph Mifsud, an individual
with strong Anglo-American intelligence connections, wined and dined him and told him that
Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails."
An Australian diplomat, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer , who was similarly
connected, invited him out for drinks and then passed along the fruits of the conversation to
Canberra, which related them to Washington. A Belorussian-American businessman who worked for
Steele offered Papadopoulos $30,000 a month under the table. A U.S. intelligence asset named
Charles Tawil presented him with $10,000 in cash. A long-time CIA informant named Stefan Halper
flew Papadopoulos to London and barraged him with questions:
"It's great that Russia is helping you and the campaign, right, George? George, you and your
campaign are involved in hacking and working with Russia, right? It seems like you are a
middleman for Trump and Russia, right? I know you know about the emails."
"I don't know what the fuck you're talking about," Papadopoulos replied according to
his recent book , "Deep State Target." But what if he had instead chuckled or said
something stupid in order to puff himself up? Based on previous
FBI entrapment cases , the answer seems clear: after threatening him with prosecution, the
bureau would have outfitted him with a wire so that he could bring down other campaign
officials. It wouldn't have stopped until it snared the ultimate prize –Trump
himself.
Trump
told reporters in May he wanted Australia's role to be investigated by the Justice
Department. Comey's Trump Tower meeting was important because it led directly to the publication of the
notorious dossier that would generate endless headlines and cripple the incoming Trump
administration even though it was full of baloney.
Most of what we know about that meeting in the early days of the Trump administration comes
from a memo that Comeydashed off minutes later and then lightly revised the next morning.
According to his memo, Comey met one-on-one with Trump to tell him about the Steele dossier
because
"the content [was] known at IC [intelligence community] senior level and I didn't want him
caught cold by some of the detail . I said I wasn't saying this was true, only that I wanted
him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands. I said
media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not
give them the excuse to write that the FBI has the material and that we were keeping it very
close-hold."
But Comey's memo was disingenuous, starting with his line about not wanting to give the
media "the excuse to write that the FBI has the material." Leaks are an integral part of
Washington, as an insider and a leaker like Comey knows.
As Comey must have also known, his very decision to brief Trump on the dossier wound up
triggering press attention to it.
Four days later, Buzzfeed
posted the dossier on its website. The source remains anonymous but it's easy to imagine
that either Director of National Intelligence James Clapper or CIA Director John Brennan
spilled the beans. They both accompanied Comey to the meeting and were appalled by Trump's call
for a rapprochement with Russia.
Comey's memo also rings false where it says he "wasn't saying this was true, only that I
wanted him to know both that it had been reported and that the reports were in many hands."
Glenn Simpson, the ex- Wall Street Journal reporter whose private Washington
intelligence firm, Fusion GPS, commissioned the dossier on behalf of the Clinton campaign and
the DNC, told the House intelligence committee that Steele began sharing his findings with the
FBI "in July or late June" of 2016. (See p. 60 of testimony
transcript ).
That means that the bureau had the Moscow Ritz-Carlton report in hand six months prior to
the Trump Tower meeting. Surely, this is enough time to reach some conclusion as to its
veracity.
'Might Make Statements'
Had Trump fallen into Comey's trap, millions of Americans would no doubt have cheered – and given
Trump's dismal record in office, who can blame them? But the implications are chilling, and not
just for rightwing dissidents. Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely
submit them to the FBI for review.
With the Electoral College and the Supreme Court already overturning the popular vote in
two of the last five presidential elections, voters would have a fourth branch to contend with
– the intelligence community.
As Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer told MSNBC'S Rachel Maddow at the height of
the Russiagate madness: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community – they
have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you." Had Comey succeeded in bringing down Trump,
they may have had a seventh.
Daniel Lazare is the author of "The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing
Democracy" (Harcourt Brace, 1996) and other books about American politics. He has written for a
wide variety of publications from The Nation to Le Monde Diplomatique and
blogs about the Constitution and related matters at D aniellazare.com .
Richard A. , September 24, 2019 at 15:13
I think Russiagate is more than just smearing Trump, it's also about smearing Russia. The
war lobby here in the US and the UK are trying to manipulate public opinion in to hating
Russia.
R Zarate , September 24, 2019 at 05:02
And now there are calls to impeach Trump for asking for an investigation into Biden! It
speaks volumes about the MSM that there was no uproar when H.B. took the job at Bursima, I
remember the White House putting out a release at the time saying they could see no conflict
of interest, I guess the lack of conflict was it was par for the course to enrich family
members.
By the bye. So Trump gets impeached, then what? Didn't do Clinton any harm.
CitizenOne , September 23, 2019 at 23:26
It is an interesting history filled with plots within plots to destroy Trump for the
audacity to win the presidential election. True he won the election with a lot of help from
Cambridge Analytica and his election team which included Roger Stone, George Papadopoulos
(the nube) Paul Manafort (the former partner in the Black, Stone, Manafort and Kelly lobby
firm) , Rick Gates and Michael Flynn.
All these people were indicted under the Mueller probe but yet Trump escaped without a
scratch on his record. To pull this off Trump abandoned all of them in turn claiming he
hardly knew them and had no involvement. How Trump escaped from the Mueller investigation has
nothing to do with his innocence and everything to do with the lack of evidence tying him to
the crimes his associates admitted to under intense scrutiny by the Mueller Special Council
Investigation into the alleged Russian Hacks which supposedly threw the election toward
Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump's long time lawyer was also convicted of paying off two women
that alleged Trump arranged for sex with the women and later paid them off handsomely
allegedly by orders from Trump.
It is like Trump won his freedom because there was no evidence to convict him despite the
many people who were closely associated with himwho fell as victims to the special
prosecutors zeal for indictments of Trump's inner guard.
In the end the Mueller report all but exonerated Trump with Mueller claiming Trump had
committed impeachable evidence but that Mueller could do nothing about that leaving his
conclusions up to the court of popular appeal as to whether or not Trump was guilty of
obstruction of justice in the entire Russia Gate story.
Trump accurately called out the testimony of Comey before Congress into what he knew about
the Russian attempt to hack the election as fake news. Trump banked on what the intelligence
community would share about the election result and he won big time when the Mueller
investigation into Russian hacking of the election produced no tangible connection between
Trump and the alleged hackers. The Steel dossier was also l shown to be just more fake news
paid for by the democrats.
The longer Trump remains in charge the less likely that he will be implicated in a scandal
although the new allegations that he attempted to get the Ukrainian government to investigate
Joe Biden has the potential to raise a new round of fake news decrying that the president has
engaged in yet more impeachable offenses.
robert e williamson jr , September 23, 2019 at 21:23
Beware of the Department of Justice, mad dogs and dogs of war.
Appears to be FBI disruption of the domestic governmental tranquility for the unique
purpose of disrupting a duly elected president.
I mean the FBI bill themselves as the domestic counter intelligence apparatus and CIA
apparently agrees. Maybe CIA is actually running another of their counter intelligence covert
mission that involves the undoing of Ole Donny J. .
No I didn't say it, no mention of the dreaded "executive action" my me.
My assumption is that this may be simply collateral damage from the investigation into the
Russia meddling in the 2016 elec . . . . .
. . . and the beat goes on, la da da dee . . . !
That far away look in the eyes of the old democratic leaders is the look of "the fear"
(H.S.T.). They watch as the repugs, their partners in crime get skewered , by the same DOJ
that will skewer them in a New York second given a chance.
DOJ and the USAG leading the shock troops of the National Socialists take over.
Sandra Thompson , September 23, 2019 at 20:58
One of your best lines: "Instead of electing presidents, Americans would merely submit
them to the FBI for review." Liked last couple of paragraphs too. Thank you
Abby , September 23, 2019 at 19:43
So Comey knowingly and blatantly lied to the incoming president and it was that incoming
president that got investigated? How the hell does that make sense to the Russia Gaters? And
then they elevated Comey after he got fired? This makes as much sense as people thinking that
Robert Mueller was going to save the country.
After reading Parry's essay on Joe ByeDone from 2014 after the Obama coup in Ukraine that
showed how corrupt the powerful people in our government are I don't even know why people
bother to vote anymore. The country is run by people behind the scenes who use congress
critters to do their dirty work and give them cover. And with our corrupt military industrial
complex setting the world on fire I think it's time for the empire to burn.
I read somewhere early on that someone was peddling the steele-dossier to many different
outlets weeks or even months before trump's briefing, but they wouldn't bite (too fantastic)
until the feds legitimized it. The people should be informed about these mechanics.
Dan Anderson , September 23, 2019 at 15:09
Here's the warning before being sworn in:
January 3, 2017 – Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer: "Let me tell you, you take on
the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday to get back at you. So, even for a
practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he is being really dumb to do this."
Rachel Maddow: "What do you think the intelligence community would do if they were motivated
to?"
Schumer: "I don't know, but from what I am told, they are very upset with how he has treated
them and talked about them," -- The Rachel Maddow Show Jan 3, 2017
"... The most alarming aspect of the Trump–Russia investigation, and of the stark difference between the aggression with which it was pursued and the see-no-evil passivity of the Clinton emails caper, is the way the investigative process was used to influence political outcomes. ..."
"... Ardent Trump supporters are growling over news that the FBI's former director, James Comey, will not be prosecuted by the Justice Department for the mishandling of memoranda he wrote about his contacts with the president. The news has been reported by The Hill 's John Solomon and the Washington Post 's Devlin Barrett , among others. ..."
"... Indications are that Horowitz referred the memos issue to the Justice Department for possible prosecution and that, after reviewing the IG's findings, Justice declined to pursue the matter as a criminal case. ..."
A free society cannot stay free for long if the criminal-justice system becomes a political
weapon, if that becomes our norm.
The most alarming aspect of the Trump–Russia investigation, and of the stark
difference between the aggression with which it was pursued and the see-no-evil passivity of
the Clinton emails caper, is the way the investigative process was used to influence political
outcomes.
The way to right that wrong is to prevent it from becoming the new normal, not to turn the
tables of abuse when power shifts from one side to the other. We can only make things worse by
losing the distinction between rebuking errors in judgment and criminalizing them.
Ardent Trump supporters are growling over news that the FBI's former director, James Comey,
will not be prosecuted by the Justice Department for the mishandling of memoranda he wrote
about his contacts with the president. The news has been reported by
The Hill 's John Solomon and the
Washington Post 's Devlin Barrett , among others.
Comey's handling of his memos is one aspect of probes related to investigations attendant to
the 2016 election, which are being conducted by Justice Department independent counsel Michael
Horowitz. Indications are that Horowitz referred the memos issue to the Justice Department for
possible prosecution and that, after reviewing the IG's findings, Justice declined to pursue
the matter as a criminal case.
"... The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for anything, never found anything and never wrote anything. ..."
"... The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired result: Republicans lost the House. ..."
"... Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor. ..."
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear,
by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer might be
because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a pro-détente
foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive, advocacy by a would-be
Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in the 20th century had been
initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not.
... ... ...
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First and
foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.) At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be
asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and
would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
"former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion."
Let me unpack that for you, esteemed professor: RM was "special counsel" in name only. The
real boss was Andrew Weissman. The "report" was his work. Mueller never looked for
anything, never found anything and never wrote anything.
The entire charade was part of the "resistance" to straight jacket Trump until the mid
term elections, a strategy put in motion by Comey and Brennan, which achieved the desired
result: Republicans lost the House.
Of course there was "little Russia in Russiagate." The narrative was all disinformation
set loose by Crowdstrike and Fusion GPS, paid for by Hillary and the DNC with the blessing of
President Obama. Welcome to the tin foil hat brigade as contributor.
Robert Mueller - pitched as an incorruptible beacon of justice when he was tasked with
(unsuccessfully) hunting down ties between Donald Trump and Russia - was nothing more than a
hatchet man for the deep state , who participated in a coverup of Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11
according to a new report by the
New York Post 's Paul Sperry - citing former FBI investigators and a new lawsuit by 9/11
victims.
According to Sperry, Mueller stonewalled after FBI agents discovered evidence of
"multiple, systemic efforts by the Saudi government to assist the hijackers in the lead-up to
the 9/11 attacks, " while the former FBI director allegedly "covered up evidence pointing back
to the Saudi Embassy and Riyadh -- and may have even misled Congress about what he knew. "
" He was the master when it came to covering up the kingdom's role in 9/11 ," said Sharon
Premoli, a September 11th survivor who was pulled out of the rubble of the World Trade Center,
and is now suing Saudi Arabia as a plaintiff in a new lawsuit .
"In October of 2001, Mueller shut down the government's investigation after only three weeks
, and then took part in the Bush [administration's] campaign to block, obfuscate and generally
stop anything about Saudi Arabia from being released," she added.
" Any letting the Saudis off the hook came from the White House ," said former Agent Mark
Rossini, adding "I can still see that photo of Bandar and Bush enjoying cigars on the balcony
of the White House two days after 9/11."
Speaking with multiple FBI case agents, Sperry lists a series of incidents describing
Mueller 'throwing up roadblocks' in front of his own investigators - "making it easier for
Saudi suspects to escape questioning." And according to the lawsuit, Mueller "deep-sixed what
evidence his agents did manage to uncover."
Time and again, agents were called off from pursuing leads back to the kingdom's embassy
in Washington, as well as its consulate in Los Angeles, where former FBI Agent Stephen Moore
headed a 9/11 task force looking into local contacts made by two of the 15 Saudi hijackers,
Moore testified in an affidavit for the 9/11 lawsuit. He concluded that "diplomatic and
intelligence personnel of Saudi Arabia knowingly provided material support to the two
hijackers and facilitated the 9/11 plot." Yet he and his team were not allowed to interview
them, according to the suit.
In Washington, former FBI Agent John Guandolo, who worked terror cases out of the
bureau's DC office, said then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar "should have been treated as a
terrorist suspect" for giving money to a woman who funded two of the 9/11 hijackers. But he
was never questioned either, Guandolo said.
Instead, Mueller obliged what Guandolo called an "outrageous request" from Bandar within
days of the attacks to help evacuate from the country dozens of Saudi officials, including at
least one Osama bin Laden relative on the terror watch list. Mueller assured their safe
passage to planes, using agents as personal escorts, according to FBI documents obtained by
Judicial Watch. Agents who should have been interrogating the Saudis instead acted as their
bodyguards.
In 2002, Mueller prevented agents from arresting the Saudi-sponsored al Qaeda cleric who
privately counseled the Saudi hijackers, said Raymond Fournier, an agent with the Joint
Terrorism Task Force in San Diego at the time. "He was responsible for vacating the arrest
warrant for Anwar al-Awlaki for passport fraud," Fournier said. He even ordered agents who
detained the fiend at JFK to release him into the custody of a "Saudi representative,"
Fournier said. The FBI closed their investigation of Awlaki, who was allowed to leave the US
on a Saudi plane. "Shortly thereafter, the Fort Hood shooting occurred and Awlaki's
fingerprints were all over that incident," said former FBI Agent Michael Biasello, who helped
work the Texas terror case.
At the same time, Mueller removed a veteran agent from investigating a tip that an
adviser to the Saudi royal family had met with some of the Saudi hijackers at his home in
Sarasota, Fla., effectively killing the case, according to the lawsuit. The home was suddenly
abandoned two weeks before 9/11.
Mueller even tried to shut down a congressional investigation into the Saudi hijackers
and their contacts in LA and San Diego, said Bob Graham, who led the joint inquiry as Senate
Intelligence Committee chair. "The strongest objections" to his staff investigators visiting
FBI offices there came from the FBI director himself, said Graham, in a 2017 interview with
Harper's magazine. Among other things, Mueller refused their demands to question a paid FBI
informant who roomed with the hijackers and even moved him to a safe house where they
couldn't find him, Graham said. Mueller, with the White House, redacted 28 pages detailing
Saudi-9/11 ties from the congressional report.
He also gave testimony to Congress that was, at the very least, misleading. In an October
2002 closed-door hearing, Mueller claimed he found out about Saudi-9/11 connections only as a
result of the joint inquiry's investigative work: "[S]ome facts came to light here and to me,
frankly, that had not come to light before." Only, Moore said he gave Mueller "daily"
briefings on such connections in 2001. Mueller also testified the hijackers "contacted no
known terrorist sympathizers in the United States," even though the FBI's own case files
showed they had contact with at least 14 terrorist suspects and sympathizers in the US prior
to 9/11, including some working for the Saudi government. (In later testimony, he tried to
walk this back, insisting he "had no intent to mislead.")
***
"He's a villain, and an arrogant one to boot," said former FBI agent Mark Wauck, who called
Mueller a "servant of the deep state."
"Certain key unknown figures in the Federal Reserve may have 'conspired' with key unknown
figures at the Bank of New York to create a situation where $240 billion in off balance sheet
securities created in 1991 as part of an official covert operation to overthrow the Soviet
Union, could be cleared without publicly acknowledging their existence. These securities,
originally managed by Cantor Fitzgerald, were cleared and settled in the aftermath of
September 11th
through the BoNY. The $100 billion account balance bubble reported by the Wall Street
Journalas being experienced in the BoNY was tip of a three day operation, when these
securities were moved from off-balance-sheet to the balance sheet.
Mueller's a real criminal, but it is not the Saudis who is helped cover up for, it's the
Evil Entity Israel that did 9/11. Everyone with two working brain cells knows that, except
the Zionist shill that wrote this crap article.
911 is just four days away. Let's listen to them read 3000 names on that day and feel warm
and cozys so we remember one more time what president **** Cheney and Vice President Donald
Rumsfeld brought upon this country with the help of Susan Rice and the general's speech about
mushroom clouds.
Coverups and conspiracies are a way of life in Washington. Coverups are discovered after
it is too late to do anything. There is a huge coverup going on right now to prevent anointed
members of the power structure of the world from being exposed. http://quillian.net/blog/the-importance-of-covering-up-the-epstein-affair/
How about the FBI cover-up of the "five dancing Israelis" that confirmed on Israeli TV,
they were there to "document the event" by video and were allowed to leave the country
without further ado.
And then there's Lucky Larry Silverstein who collected handsomely from insurances on the
collapse of bldgs 1,2 and my favorite bldg7.
You think that a guy who has been repeatedly rebuked by the Department of Justice Inspector
General for violating DOJ and FBI policies and procedures would have the grace to be silent.
You would be wrong. Jim Comey has anointed himself as the Jesus Christ of America. Only Jim is
wise and good. Only Jimmy can save us from that anti-Christ, Donald Trump.
And Comey's latest? Trump's a narcissist. Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to
being accused of having sex with underage girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein. Jim Comey tweeted
out the following today (Sunday):
It's Sunday morning. A devastating hurricane is approaching. A gunman just slaughtered
innocents in Texas. But the President of the United States is wasting time airing personal
grievances and live-Tweeting Fox. Narcissism is not leadership. America deserves better. Could
not agree more. Except the narcissist in Chief is not Trump. It is you, Jimmy Comey. It was not
Donald Trump who overstepped his authority and read out a detailed list of charges against
Hillary Clinton. It was not Donald Trump that sat on the news that Anthony "Little Dick"
Weiner's laptop contained more classified Hillary emails. It was not Donald Trump who then
belatedly announced the discovery of said emails.
Jimmy Comey has achieved new lows in smug sanctimony. His self-righteous bullshit has passed
the point of tiresome. It is just annoying. I spoke with a retired FBI buddy today. He was one
of the first ones detailed to CIA Headquarters in the late 1990s in an effort to improve
inter-agency coordination (and that mission failed in large measure because of the behavior of
another narcissist, the CIA Chief of Alec Station). He was beyond sad and embarrassed at the
spectacle and conduct of Jim Comey. My friend told me that he used to happily introduce himself
as a "retired FBI agent." No longer. He simply says that he worked for the Government and tries
to avoid saying anything about having served with the FBI. The big hammer is still to drop and
Comey is not likely to walk away a free man. He lied to a Federal Court. He needs to be held
accountable.
"Being called a narcissist by Jim Comey is akin to being accused of having sex with underage
girls by the late Jeffrey Epstein."
As usual, your analogy here is spot on. I'm still giggling.
My literary analogy would have been that Comey is the very inept Walter Mitty of today's
America. He does imagine himself as the "voice crying in the wilderness."
It sounds, however like a braying donkey wanting some attention. He was one of the
Democrats' "useful idiots." Too bad they didn't realize that they might actually get a
certified idiot.
"... It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016 presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1 threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent accusation. ..."
"... Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the election? ..."
"... Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996. ..."
"... Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began -- by whom, when, and why. ..."
"... Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? ..."
"... the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely culprits. ..."
"... First and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in Russiagate.) ..."
"... At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy. ..."
It must again be emphasized: It is hard, if not impossible, to think of a more toxic
allegation in American presidential history than the one leveled against candidate, and then
president, Donald Trump that he "colluded" with the Kremlin in order to win the 2016
presidential election -- and, still more, that Vladimir Putin's regime, "America's No. 1
threat," had compromising material on Trump that made him its "puppet." Or a more fraudulent
accusation.
Even leaving aside the misperception
that Russia is the primary threat to America in world affairs, no aspect of this allegation has
turned out to be true, as should have been evident from the outset. Major aspects of the now
infamous Steele Dossier, on which much of the allegation was based, were themselves not merely
"unverified" but plainly implausible.
Was it plausible, for example, that Trump, a longtime owner and operator of
international hotels, would commit an indiscreet act in a Moscow hotel that he did not own or
control? Or that, as Steele also claimed, high-level Kremlin sources had fed him damning
anti-Trump information even though their vigilant boss, Putin, wanted Trump to win the
election? Nonetheless, the American mainstream media and other important elements of the
US political establishment relied on Steele's allegations for nearly three years, even
heroizing him -- and some still do, explicitly or implicitly.
Not surprisingly, former special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence of "collusion"
between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. No credible evidence has been produced that
Russia's "interference" affected the result of the 2016 presidential election in any
significant way. Nor was Russian "meddling" in the election anything akin to a "digital
Pearl Harbor," as widely asserted, and it was certainly far less and less intrusive than
President Bill Clinton's political and financial "interference" undertaken to assure the
reelection of Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996.
Nonetheless, Russiagate's core allegation persists, like a legend, in American political
life -- in media commentary, in financial solicitations by some Democratic candidates for
Congress, and, as is clear from my own discussions, in the minds of otherwise well-informed
people. The only way to dispel, to excoriate, such a legend is to learn and expose how it began
-- by whom, when, and why.
Officially, at least in the FBI's version, its operation "Crossfire Hurricane," the
counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign that began in mid-2016 was due to
suspicious remarks made to visitors by a young and lowly Trump aide, George Papadopoulos. This
too is not believable, as I pointed out previously .
Most of those visitors themselves had ties to Western intelligence agencies. That is, the young
Trump aide was being enticed, possibly entrapped, as part of a larger intelligence operation
against Trump. (Papadopoulos wasn't the only Trump associate targeted, Carter Page being
another.)
But the question remains: Why did Western intelligence agencies, prompted, it seems
clear, by US ones, seek to undermine Trump's presidential campaign? A reflexive answer
might be because candidate Trump promised to "cooperate with Russia," to pursue a
pro-détente foreign policy, but this was hardly a startling, still less subversive,
advocacy by a would-be Republican president. All of the major pro-détente episodes in
the 20th century had been initiated by Republican presidents: Eisenhower, Nixon, and
Reagan.
So, again, what was it about Trump that so spooked the spooks so far off their rightful
reservation and so intrusively into American presidential politics? Investigations being
overseen by Attorney General William Barr may provide answers -- or not. Barr has already
leveled procedural charges against James Comey, head of the FBI under President Obama and
briefly under President Trump, but the repeatedly hapless Comey seems incapable of having
initiated such an audacious operation against a presidential candidate, still less a
president-elect. As I have long suggested, John Brennan and James Clapper, head of the CIA and
Office of National Intelligence under Obama respectively, are the more likely
culprits.
The FBI is no longer the fearsome organization it once was and thus not hard to investigate,
as Barr has already shown. The others, particularly the CIA, are a different matter, and Barr
has suggested they are resisting. To investigate them, particularly the CIA, it seems, he has
brought in a veteran prosecutor-investigator, John Durham.
Which raises other questions. Are Barr and Durham, whose own careers include associations
with US intelligence agencies, determined to uncover the truth about the origins of Russiagate?
And can they really do so fully, given the resistance already apparent? Even if so, will Barr
make public their findings, however damning of the intelligence agencies they may be, or will
he classify them? And if the latter, will President Trump use his authority to declassify the
findings as the 2020 presidential election approaches in order to discredit the role of Obama's
presidency and its would-be heirs?
Equally important perhaps, how will mainstream media treat the Barr-Durham investigation and
its findings? Having driven the Russiagate narrative for so long and so misleadingly -- and
with liberals perhaps finding themselves in the incongruous position of defending rogue
intelligence agencies -- will they credit or seek to discredit the findings?
It is true, of course, that Barr and Durham, as Trump appointees, are not the ideal
investigators of Intel misdeeds in the Russiagate saga. Much better would be a truly
bipartisan, independent investigation based in the Senate, as was the Church Committee of the
mid-1970s, which exposed and reformed (it thought at the time) serious abuses by US
intelligence agencies. That would require, however, a sizable core of nonpartisan, honorable,
and courageous senators of both parties, who thus far seem to be lacking.
There are also, however, the ongoing and upcoming Democratic presidential debates. First
and foremost, Russiagate is about the present and future of the American political system, not
about Russia. (Indeed, as I have repeatedly argued, there is very little, if any, Russia in
Russiagate.)
At every "debate" or comparable forum, all of the Democratic candidates should be asked
about this grave threat to American democracy -- what they think about what happened and would
do about it if elected president. Consider it health care for our democracy.
This commentary is based on Stephen F. Cohen's most recent weekly discussion with the
host ofThe John Batchelor Show
. Now in their sixth year, previous installments are atTheNation.com .
Stephen
F. Cohen Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New
York University and Princeton University. A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book
War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate is available in paperback
and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now
in their sixth year, are available at www.thenation.com .
Update (1455ET)
: The White House has issued an extremely strong statement
on the Inspector General's report:
Statement from the Press Secretory
James Comey is a proven liar and leaker.
The Inspector General's report shows
Comey violated the most basic obligations of confidentiality that he owed to the United States
Government and to the American people,
"in order to achieve a personally desired outcome."
Because Comey
shamefully leaked information to the press
- in blatant violation
of FBI policies - the Nation was forced to endure the baseless politically-motivated, two-year
witch hunt.
Comey disgraced himself
and his office to further a personal political agenda,
and this report further confirms that fact.
* * *
Update (1405ET)
:
President Trump has taken a momentary break from helping
Fla. Gov. Ron DeSantis batten down the hatches ahead of Hurricane Dorian's weekend landfall - and from
doing everything he can to pump the market - by taking a shot at disgraced former FBI director James
Comey following the Thursday publication of the DoJ's IG report, which confirmed that Comey violated
both DoJ policy and the law, by leaking the contents of his memos to the press.
"Perhaps never in the history of our Country has someone been more thoroughly disgraced and
excoriated than James Comey in the just-released Inspector General's Report," Trump tweeted.
"He should be ashamed of himself!"
Of course, as we mentioned below, Comey doesn't see it that way. But maybe, someday, he'll at least
acknowledge that he acted rashly - and put his subordinates in a very awkward position - by deciding
to leak the memos as an unabashed strategy to try and undermine the newly inaugurated president of the
country he claims to love so dearly.
* * *
In a long-awaited report released Thursday morning, the DOJ's inspector general revealed that
former FBI Director James Comey's handling of the memos he took from meetings with President Trump
before he was unceremoniously fired in early 2017
violated department policy and the law
when he shared them with a longtime confidant, who then leaked their contents to the press.
"We conclude that Comey's retention, handling, and dissemination of certain Memos violated
Department and FBI policies, and his FBI Employment Agreement," the Justice Department inspector
general report states.
Fox News Host Sean Hannity warned that Comey should be worried about facing the repercussions for
his decision to leak the contents of the memos.
"Without a doubt...
[Comey] should be sweating a lot tonight
about what might be
in those reports. This report is expected to be the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Jim Comey."
The IG's office had referred Comey for potential prosecution earlier this summer based on his
handling of the memos,
CNN
reported.
But the DoJ declined to bring a case, in part because prosecutors didn't believe there was
evidence to show Comey knew and intended to violate laws pertaining to the handling of classified
information.
Still, as Hannity said,
things are "not looking good...for Mr. Super Patriot
, a
guy that knows better than us...we are told that the report will strongly rebuke the disgraced former
FBI director, document his
utter lack of candor. That means lying,
" Hannity said.
As an earlier media report reminded us, the Comey report is separate from a larger report about how
the DoJ handled the Russia investigation, though it's still not clear why the separate report is
needed.
Comey infamously took created the memos after meetings with President Trump where Trump purportedly
asked him to go easy on former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn. Comey then leaked the contents
of these memos to a friend through a trusted confidant, helping to spur the launch of the Russia
probe.
In a series of tweets replying to the report, Comey tried to spin the report's findings,
highlighting a section of the report that was favorable to his narrative.
Here are some highlights from the report, starting with the conclusion:
Congress has provided the FBI with substantial powers and authorities to gather evidence as part of
the FBI's criminal and counterintelligence mission. The FBI uses these authorities every day in its
many investigations into allegations of drug trafficking, terrorism, fraud, organized crime, public
corruption, espionage, and a host of other threats to national security and public safety. In the
process, the FBI lawfully gains access to a significant amount of sensitive information about
individuals, many of whom have not been charged, may never be charged, or may not even be a subject of
the investigation. For this reason, the civil liberties of every individual who may fall within the
scope of the FBI's investigative authorities depend on the FBI's ability to protect sensitive
information from unauthorized disclosure.
As Comey himself explained in his March 20, 2017 testimony before the House Permanent Select
Committee on Intelligence, he was unable to provide details about the nature or scope of the FBI's
ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election because the FBI is
very careful in how we handle information about our cases and about the people we are investigating .
Our ability to share details with the Congress and the American people is limited when those
investigations are still open, which I hope makes sense. We need to protect people's privacy . We just
cannot do our work well or fairly if we start talking about it while we're doing it.
However, after his removal as FBI Director two months later, Comey provided a copy of Memo 4, which
Comey had kept without authorization, to Richman with instructions to share the contents with a
reporter for The New York Times. Memo 4 included information that was related to both the FBI's
ongoing investigation of Flynn and, by Comey's own account, information that he believed and alleged
constituted evidence of an attempt to obstruct the ongoing Flynn investigation; later that same day,
The New York Times published an article about Memo 4 entitled, "Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End
Flynn Investigation."
The responsibility to protect sensitive law enforcement information falls in large part to the
employees of the FBI who have access to it through their daily duties. On occasion, some of these
employees may disagree with decisions by prosecutors, judges, or higher ranking FBI and Department
officials about the actions to take or not take in criminal and counterintelligence matters. They may
even, in some situations, distrust the legitimacy of those supervisory, prosecutorial, or judicial
decisions. But even when these employees believe that their most strongly-held personal convictions
might be served by an unauthorized disclosure, the FBI depends on them not to disclose sensitive
information.
Former Director Comey failed to live up to this responsibility. By not safeguarding sensitive
information obtained during the course of his FBI employment, and by using it to create public
pressure for official action, Comey set a dangerous example for the over 35,000 current FBI
employees -- and the many thousands more former FBI employees -- who similarly have access to or knowledge
of non-public information. Comey said he was compelled to take these actions "if I love this
country and I love the Department of Justice, and I love the FBI." However, were current or former FBI
employees to follow the former Director's example and disclose sensitive information in service of
their own strongly held personal convictions, the FBI would be unable to dispatch its law enforcement
duties properly, as Comey himself noted in his March 20, 2017 congressional testimony. Comey expressed
a similar concern to President Trump, according to Memo 4, in discussing leaks of FBI information,
telling Trump that the FBI's ability to conduct its work is compromised "if people run around telling
the press what we do." This is no doubt part of the reason why Comey's closest advisors used the words
"surprised," "stunned," "shocked," and "disappointment" to describe their reactions to learning what
Comey had done.
We have previously faulted Comey for acting unilaterally and inconsistent with Department
policy.103 Comey's unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn
investigation merits similar criticism. In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost
importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when confronted
by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions. Comey had several
other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a Special Counsel, which he
told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was the unauthorized disclosure
of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of FBI employment, in order to
achieve a personally desired outcome.
* * *
If he wanted to force the appointment of a special counsel, the report found that Comey had other
lawful
options besides leaking to the press, yet, he chose to ignore
them.
Comey's unauthorized disclosure of sensitive law enforcement information about the Flynn
investigation merits similar criticism. In a country built on the rule of law, it is of utmost
importance that all FBI employees adhere to Department and FBI policies, particularly when
confronted by what appear to be extraordinary circumstances or compelling personal convictions.
Comey had several other lawful options available to him to advocate for the appointment of a
Special Counsel, which he told us was his goal in making the disclosure. What was not permitted was
the unauthorized disclosure of sensitive investigative information, obtained during the course of
FBI employment, in order to achieve a personally desired outcome. The OIG has provided this report
to the FBI and to the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility for action they
deem appropriate.
Even members of Comey's leadership team were "shocked" by the then-director's actions.
IG: Members of Comey's senior leadership team used the adjectives
"surprised,"
"stunned," "shocked," and "disappointment"
to describe their reactions to learning that
Comey acted on his own to provide the contents of Memo 4, through Richman, to a reporter
As Ryan Saavedra pointed out, the IG found that Comey set a "dangerous example" for the tens of
thousands of FBI employees working under him...
...And the "bottom line", as one reporter put it:
Even CNN conceded that the report was "damning" for Comey.
Several Twitter wits sifted through the reports findings pertaining to Comey memos 1 through 7.
Read the full report released on Thursday morning bellow.
Toothless Trump. Pity him. THEY let him play deal maker.......and
nothing more. From a citizens point of view this is a lawless,
unconstitutional, rogue government. The assassination of Epstein by
this criminal government while incarcerated in the most hi-tech
federal prison in NYC which incidentally is ATTACHED to the New York
office of the Justice Department speaks for itself.
If this doesn't tell you that our intelligence services are
politically biased from the top down, nothing will. It is disgusting
that a person like him and frankly, most FBI/CIA tops, can make it
into such a dangerous and powerful positions.
Comey and McCabe have such big balls and feel so protected by the
Deep State that I wouldn't be surprised if they both run for
President on the Dem ticket when a few more of them get washed out.
I'll bet this ********** is never prosecuted; in fact, the
(((people))) he works for will likely enrich him with even more cash.
He will live out his life untouched with every convenience money can
buy in a huge home within a wealthy enclave.
The US is finished.
People like Cummie helped kill the United States. I hope this *******
**** is happy with his money.
Look you mugs, no prosecution of high level players post " global
financial crisis" ever occurred. As the official story went, sure,
there was some perhaps bad, tsk, tsk, judgement by high level
players, and corrupt revolving door " government enforcers", but no
crimes were ever committed, the verdict.
Except some very smart
folks, that most citizens never heard of, and never will hear of,
whom received absolutely zero play in the mainstream, whom
diligentlly, methodically, laid out their ironclad case for
prosecution, law, and procedure, on a variety of ummm,
inconsistencies, and existing law, pointing to this thing known as
control fraud, top among the provable crimes of the nations top men,
Clear as a ******* bell ..
Then there was John Corzine. Anyone remember him?
Nope, the departnent of just us, under the Obama regime simply
wouldn't hear of such heresy .. nor his own justice head, Eric the
place holder, and thus, systemically important, to big too fail "
entities" , their execs, and a bevy of non prosecution agreement, no
admissions of guilt, were born again .. free to continue hold on
to their assets, free to continue new crime waves ..
The point is .. this matter before you now, being another
scale, another aspect, but drawing water from the same poisoned
chalice if government service , is how should one say, business as
usual. Now tell me again about all those differences, between red
team and blue team.
Follow the fiat, the bribes, the control fraud, the control
files, which of course all draws ALL power through, and from the
money changers, and their system.
Because, if you actually read the ******* article, the memos
weren't classified. So there's not much to go after him with.
HOWEVER, he signed off on a FISA warrant which Horowitz determined
was illegal. He will be in trouble further down the line..
The Justice Department declined to prosecute former FBI Director
James Comey following a criminal referral from the agency's
independent watchdog, which concluded that Comey had leaked
classified information and showed a lack of candor with
investigators.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz reached out to prosecutors
about one of the memos Comey leaked to a friend, which detailed a
conversation he had with President Trump, after he was fired by
President Trump in May 2017.
Although prosecutors found the watchdog's findings compelling,
they decided against prosecution under classified information
protection laws because of there being too much uncertainty
surrounding Comey's
intent,
according to the
Hill
.
A month after he was fired, Comey testified to Congress he had leaked
his notes to a friend to give to the media, hoping that it would
spark a special counsel investigation.
Then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Robert
Mueller as special counsel the day after the
New York Times
first reported on details from one of Comey's leaked memos, which
claimed Trump pressed his FBI director to drop an investigation into
his national security adviser Michael Flynn. That memo was classified
as "confidential" -- the lowest classification level -- after Comey
sent the information.
With other investigations focused on the origins of the
Trump-Russia investigation underway, one source said the DOJ did not
want to "make its first case against the Russia investigators with
such thin margins and look petty and vindictive."
Comey's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for
comment. Spokespeople for the DOJ and its inspector general also did
not immediately respond to the
Washington Examiner's
request
for comment.
The news comes hours after
conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch
announced it had
obtained an FBI log about special agents arriving at Comey's home in
June 2017 to retrieve his memos. The notes show Comey
handed over four of them
to the FBI agents, and he said to the
best of his recollection two might be missing.
Although the DOJ declined to prosecute in this case, Comey, who
has become a vocal critic of the president since his ouster, is not
yet in the clear.
Comey is also a possible target of Horowitz's separate
investigation into alleged Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
abuse. He
signed three of the four
FISA applications targeting former Trump
campaign adviser Carter Page before being fired by Trump. Horowitz's
report is
expected to be released
after Labor Day.
It is also likely that Comey's actions as FBI director will be
scrutinized during the
"investigation of the investigators,"
a review of the origins of
the Trump-Russia investigation, being led by Attorney General William
Barr and the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, John Durham.
OIG has no authority to indict (although their law enforcement
arms can and do recommend for prosecution, which would not be
produced here), but in most .GOV agencies their word is feared
like that of almighty God. This report is utterly damning. If
nothing results from it, it would be truly remarkable.
Watch the pretzel logic for when the prosecutors decline to
indict. It's a country club. They are all friends outside of
work.
Comey and Mueller took vacations together with their
families for Chrissakes
Trump appointed deep state POS to key positions: Sessions then Barr,
Wray at the FBI, Rosenshits gets to sneak away, Dan Coats gets to
obstruct. Where are all the buckets of FISA documents that Trump
ordered Barr to declassify? And tough guy "Mad Dog" Mattis is a
****** and sells out to Amazon. We are being had.
Images removed. See the original for full version.
Much more plausible explanation of Russiagate then Mueller report that cost probably 1000 times less. Mueller and his team should
commit hara-kiri in shame.
It contains more valuable information about Russiagate and color revolution against Trump initiatesd by Obama and Brennan. And
what is important it is much shorter and up to the point. In other words, Jeff Carlson beat the whole Mueller team to the
punch.
An excellent reporting by Jeff Carlson !!! Bravo!!!
Notable quotes:
"... Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the Inspector General Empowerment Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016, Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law. ..."
"... The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims that there was no classified information present on her server. ..."
"... On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began. ..."
"... Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters. ..."
"... On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey appointed McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having held the No. 3 position for just six months. ..."
"... By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place at the FBI. ..."
"... Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. ..."
"... It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?" ..."
"... Peter and Jon, yeah." ..."
"... Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?" ..."
"... My understanding was that he was aware." ..."
"... Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa. ..."
"... While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious -- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so. ..."
"... As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. ..."
"... The last major segment of Brennan's efforts involved a series of three reports. The first, titled the "Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security ," was released on Oct. 7, 2016. The second report, "GRIZZLY STEPPE -- Russian Malicious Cyber Activity ," was released on Dec. 29, 2016. The third report, "Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent U.S. Elections " -- also known as the intelligence community assessment (ICA) -- was released on Jan. 6, 2017. ..."
"... On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry. ..."
"... Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014. ..."
"... Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia -- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie. ..."
"... In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media, government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia." ..."
"... Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day. One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI. ..."
"... The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight was done in consultation with the Obama administration: ..."
"... Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. ..."
"... Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a statement on the same day that touted Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached. ..."
"... Winer had received a separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier. ..."
"... Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to UK Court documents , Steele testified that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person." ..."
"... Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016. Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession. ..."
"... Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration. ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted. ..."
"... Carlin filed the government's proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016, report by the NSA inspector general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing Section 702-compliance review. ..."
Efforts by high-ranking officials in the CIA ,
FBI , Department of Justice (
DOJ ), and State Department to portray President
Donald Trump as having colluded with Russia were the culmination
of years of bias and politicization under the Obama administration.
The weaponization of the intelligence community and other government agencies created an environment that allowed for obstruction
in the investigation into Hillary Clinton and the relentless pursuit of a manufactured collusion narrative against Trump.
A willing and complicit media spread unsubstantiated leaks as facts in an effort to promote the Russia-collusion narrative.
The Spygate scandal also raises a bigger question: Was the 2016 election a one-time aberration, or was it symptomatic of decades
of institutional political corruption?
This article builds on dozens of congressional testimonies, court documents, and other research to provide an inside look at the
actions of Obama administration officials in the scandal that's become known as Spygate.
To understand this abuse of power, it helps to go back to July 2011, when DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed.
From the very start, Horowitz found his duties throttled by Attorney General Eric Holder, who placed limitations on the inspector
general's right to have unobstructed access to information. Holder
used
this tactic to delay Horowitz's investigation of the failed sting operation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information," Horowitz told
members of Congress in February 2015.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general had sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page memorandum, titled "
Memorandum
for Sally Quillian Yates Deputy Attorney General ," written by Karl R. Thompson, the principal deputy assistant attorney general
of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).
The July 20, 2015, opinion was
widely criticized . But it accomplished what it was intended to do. The opinion limited IG Horowitz's oversight from extending
to any information collected under Title III -- including intercepted communications and national security letters. (Notably, The
New York Times
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump 2016 presidential campaign.)
In response, on Aug. 3, 2015, IG Horowitz sent a
blistering letter to Congress. The letter was signed not only by Horowitz but by all other acting inspectors general as well:
"The OLC opinion's restrictive reading of the IG Act represents a potentially serious challenge to the authority of every Inspector
General and our collective ability to conduct our work thoroughly, independently, and in a timely manner. Our concern is that, as
a result of the OLC opinion, agencies other than DOJ may likewise withhold crucial records from their Inspectors General, adversely
impacting their work.
Horowitz continued to push Congress for oversight access and encouraged passage of the
Inspector General Empowerment
Act . Horowitz would ultimately win his battle, but only as President
Barack Obama was leaving office. On Dec. 16, 2016,
Obama finally signed the Inspector General Empowerment Act into law.
It is against this backdrop of minimal oversight that Spygate took place.
Ironically, the Clinton email server investigation, known as the "Mid-Year Exam," originated from a disclosure contained in a
June 29, 2015, memo sent by the inspectors general for both the State Department and the Intelligence Community to Patrick F. Kennedy,
then-undersecretary of state for management.
The IGs' memo included an assessment that Clinton's email account contained hundreds of classified emails, despite Clinton's claims
that there was no classified information present on her server.
On July 6, 2015, the IG for the Intelligence Community made a
referral
to the FBI, which resulted in the official opening of an investigation into the Clinton email server by FBI officials Randall Coleman
and Charles Kable on July 10, 2015.
At this time, Peter Strzok was an assistant special agent in charge at the FBI's Washington Field Office. The assistant director
in charge at the Washington Field Office during this period was Andrew McCabe, a position he
assumed on Sept.
14, 2014.
On July 30, 2015, within weeks of the FBI's opening of the Clinton investigation, McCabe was suddenly
promoted to the No. 3 position in the FBI. With his new title of associate deputy director, McCabe was transferred to FBI headquarters
from the Washington Field Office, and his direct involvement in the Clinton investigation began.
Strzok would follow shortly. Less than a month after McCabe was transferred, FBI headquarters reached out to the Washington Field
Office, saying it needed greater staffing and resources "based on what they were looking at, based on some of the investigative steps
that were under consideration," Strzok told congressional investigators in a closed-door hearing on June 27, 2018.
Strzok was one of the agents selected, and in late August 2015, he was assigned to the Mid-Year Exam team and transferred to FBI
headquarters. Strzok, in his comments to lawmakers, acknowledged that the newly formed investigative team was largely made up of
hand-picked personnel from the Washington Field Office and FBI headquarters.
Starting in October 2015 and continuing into early 2016, FBI Director
James Comey made a series of high-profile reassignments
that resulted in the complete turnover of the upper-echelon of the FBI team working on the Clinton email investigation:
Oct. 12, 2015: Louis Bladel was moved to the New York Field Office.
Dec. 1, 2015: Randall Coleman, assistant director of Counterintelligence, was named as executive assistant director of the
Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch, and was replaced by Bill Priestap.
Dec. 9, 2015: Charles "Sandy" Kable was moved to the Washington Field Office.
Feb. 1, 2016: Mark Giuliano retired as FBI deputy director and was replaced by Andrew McCabe.
Feb. 11, 2016: John Giacalone retired as executive assistant director and was replaced by Michael Steinbach.
March 2, 2016: Gerald Roberts, Jr. was moved to the Washington Field Office.
Comey is the only known senior FBI leadership official who remained involved throughout the entire Clinton email investigation.
McCabe had the second-longest tenure.
On Jan. 29, 2016, Comey
appointed
McCabe as FBI deputy director, replacing the retiring Giuliano, and McCabe assumed the No. 2 position in the FBI, after having
held the No. 3 position for just six months.
It was at this point that FBI lawyer Lisa Page was assigned to McCabe as his special counsel. This was not the first time that
Page worked directly for McCabe. James Baker, the FBI's former general counsel, told congressional investigators that Page had worked
for McCabe at various times during McCabe's career, going back as far as 2013.
By early 2016, the three participants in the infamous "insurance policy" meeting -- McCabe, Strzok, and Page -- were now in place
at the FBI.
In January 2016, Bill Priestap was named as head of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division, replacing Coleman and inheriting the
Clinton email investigation in the process.
According to Priestap, Coleman had "set up a reporting mechanism that leaders of that team would report directly to him, not through
the customary other chain of command" in the Clinton email investigation. Priestap, who said he didn't know why Coleman had "set
it up," kept the chain of command in place when he assumed Coleman's position in January 2016.
This new structure resulted in some unusual reporting lines that went outside normal chains of command. Strzok, who would not
normally fall under Priestap's oversight, was now reporting directly to him.
As Priestap described it, the team involved in the Clinton investigation comprised three different but intertwined elements: the
primary team, the filter team, and the senior leadership team.
The primary team was small, consisting only of Strzok, FBI analyst Jonathan Moffa, and, to varying degrees, filter team leader
Rick Mains and FBI lawyer Sally Moyer. Mains reported to Strzok and Moffa, who in turn, along with Moyer, provided briefings to Priestap.
Below Strzok and Moffa was the day-to-day investigative "filter" team of approximately 15 FBI agents and analysts that was overseen
by Mains, a supervisory special agent.
The senior leadership team was more fluid, consisting of higher-level FBI officials who provided briefings and updates to Comey
and/or McCabe. In addition to Priestap, Strzok, and Moffa, frequent attendees included Moyer, Page, Deputy General Counsel Trisha
Anderson, chief of staff Jim Rybicki, and General Counsel James Baker.
While the elements of the day-to-day investigative team differed for the Clinton email investigation and the Trump–Russia investigation,
the primary team remained the same throughout both cases -- as did the lines of communication between the FBI and the DOJ. According
to testimony by Page, John Carlin, who ran the DOJ's National Security Division (NSD), was receiving briefings on both investigations
directly from McCabe.
Priestap Left in the Dark
Priestap, who testified that he was unaware of the frequency of meetings between McCabe, Strzok, and Lisa Page, seems to have
been kept in the dark regarding many of the actions taken by Strzok, who appeared to be exercising significant investigative control. Priestap was asked about this by congressional investigators during a June 5, 2018, testimony:
Rep. Meadows: " It sounds like Peter Strzok was kind of driving the train here. Would you agree with that?"
Additionally, Page often circumvented the established chain of command, not only with McCabe, for whom she reportedly served as
a conduit for Strzok, but also with Baker. Additionally, there were concerns that Page bypassed both the executive assistant director
for the National Security Branch -- first Giacalone, then Steinbach -- and Priestap, the head of counterintelligence. Anderson, the
No. 2 lawyer, admitted in her testimony to congressional investigators that she had been aware of these concerns, saying, "Neither
of them personally complained to me, but I was aware of their concerns."
A report published by IG Horowitz in June 2018, which reviewed the FBI's investigation of the Clinton email case, included the
notable statement that several witnesses had informed the IG that Page "circumvented the official chain of command, and that Strzok
communicated important Midyear case information to her, and thus to McCabe, without Priestap's or Steinbach's knowledge." Steinbach,
who was the executive assistant director and Priestap's direct supervisor,
left the FBI in early 2017.
According to Anderson, McCabe was aware of the ongoing concerns regarding Page's circumventions, but it appears that nothing was
done to address them:
Mr. Baker: " Do you know if Mr. McCabe was aware that some of his agent executives were concerned that they were being bypassed
on information on what, by all accounts, was a sensitive, critical investigation?"
Ms. Anderson: " My understanding was that he was aware."
DOJ Prevents 'Gross Negligence' Charges
By the spring of 2016, the Clinton email investigation was already winding down. This was due in large part to the fact that the
DOJ, under Attorney General Loretta Lynch , had decided
to set an unusually high threshold for the prosecution of Clinton, effectively ensuring from the outset that she would not be charged.
In order for Clinton to be prosecuted, the DOJ required the FBI to establish evidence of intent -- even though the gross negligence
statute explicitly does not require this.
This meant that the FBI would have needed to find a smoking gun, such as an email or an admission made during FBI questioning,
revealing that Clinton or her aides knowingly set up the private email server to send classified information.
According to Page, the DOJ played a far larger role in the Clinton investigation than previously had been known:
"Everybody talks about this as if this was the FBI investigation, and the truth of the matter is there was not a single step,
other than the July 5th statement, there was not a single investigative step that we did not do in consultation with or at the direction
of the Justice Department," Page told congressional investigators on July 13, 2018.
Comey also had hinted at the influence exerted by the DOJ over the Clinton investigation, at a July 5, 2016,
press conference , in which he
recommended that Clinton not be charged, stating that "there are obvious considerations, like the strength of the evidence, especially
regarding intent."
Notably, Comey had been convinced to remove the term "gross negligence" to describe Clinton's actions from his prepared statement
by, among others, Page, Strzok, Anderson, and Moffa.
CIA Director Instigates Trump Investigation
As the Clinton investigation wound down, interest from the intelligence community in the Trump campaign was ramping up. Sometime
in 2015, it appears former CIA Director John Brennan established himself as the point man to push for an investigation into the Trump
campaign. Using a combination of unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates --
primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia -- Brennan then fed this information to the
FBI. Brennan stated this fact repeatedly during a May 23, 2017,
congressional testimony :
"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump
campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."
Brennan also admitted that it was his intelligence that helped
establish the FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
In late 2015, Britain's Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) was involved in collecting information regarding then-candidate
Trump and transmitting it to the United States. The GCHQ is the UK equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
While GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been
targeted, after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Most of these meetings with Papadopoulos -- whose own background and reasons for joining the Trump campaign remain suspicious
-- occurred in the first half of 2016. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's
Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly so.
Mifsud, who introduced Papadopoulos to a series of Russian contacts, appears to have more connections with Western intelligence
than with Russian intelligence.
Downer, then Australia's high commissioner to the UK, met with Papadopoulos in May 2016, in a meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries.
Information allegedly relayed by Papadopoulos during the Downer meeting -- that the Russians had damaging information on Clinton
-- appears nearly identical to claims later contained in the first memo from former MI6 spy and dossier author Christopher Steele
that the FBI obtained in early July 2016.
Downer's conversation with Papadopoulos was reportedly disclosed to the FBI on July 22, 2016, through Australian government channels,
although it may have come directly from Downer himself.
Details from the conversation between Downer and Papadopoulos were then used by the FBI to open its counterintelligence investigation
on July 31, 2016.
In the summer of 2016, Robert Hannigan, the head of the UK's GCHQ, traveled to Washington to
meet with Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. Around the same time, Brennan
formed an inter-agency task force comprising an estimated
six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry into Trump and possible Russia
connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the NSA handled foreign and intelligence aspects.
During this time, Brennan appeared to have employed the use of
reverse targeting , which refers to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.
Mr. Brennan:
" We call it incidental collection in terms of CIA's foreign intelligence collection authorities. Any time we
would incidentally collect information on a U.S. person, we would hand that over to the FBI because they have the legal authority
to do it. We would not pursue that type of investigative, you know, sort of leads. We would give it to the FBI. So, we were picking
things up that was of great relevance to the FBI, and we wanted to make sure that they were there -- so they could piece it together
with whatever they were collecting domestically here."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a
process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed
the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump.
Notably, Adm. Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning it only a moderate confidence level.
Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier
Meanwhile, another less official effort began. Information paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton
campaign targeting Trump made its way to the highest levels of the FBI and the State Department, with a sophisticated strategy relying
on the personal connections of hired operatives.
At the center of the multi-pronged strategy to disseminate the information were Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson and former
British spy Steele.
In early March 2016, Fusion GPS approached Perkins Coie -- the law firm used by the Clinton campaign and the DNC -- expressing
interest in an "engagement," according to an Oct. 24, 2017,
response
letter by Perkins Coie. The firm hired Fusion GPS in April 2016 to "perform a variety of research services during the 2016 election
cycle."
Steele's firm, Orbis Business Intelligence, was retained by Fusion GPS during the period between June and November 2016. During
this time, Steele produced 16 memos, with the last memo dated Oct. 20, 2016. There is one final memo that Steele wrote on Dec. 13
at the request of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
Steele provided Fusion GPS with something that Simpson's firm was lacking: access to individuals within the FBI and the State
Department. These contacts could be traced back to at least 2010, when Steele had provided assistance in the FBI's investigation
into FIFA over concerns that Russia might have been engaging in bribery to host the 2018 World Cup.
Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Steele began to informally
provide reports
he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, the assistant
secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
After Steele's company was hired by Fusion GPS in June 2016, he began to reach out to the FBI through Michael Gaeta, an FBI agent
and assistant legal attaché at the
U.S. Embassy in Rome who Steele had worked with on the FIFA case. Gaeta also headed up the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, which
specializes in investigating criminal groups from Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine.
Gaeta was later identified as Steele's FBI handler, in a July 16, 2018, congressional testimony before the House Judiciary and
Oversight committees by Page.
On July 5, 2016, Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele's firm, Orbis. At some point in early July,
Steele passed his initial report to Nuland and the State Department. Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point
to both the FBI and then-Secretary of State John Kerry.
Exactly what happened with the reports that Gaeta brought back from London, and precisely who he gave them to within the FBI,
remains unknown, although some media reports have indicated they might have been sent to the FBI's New York Field Office. During
the period following Steele's initial contact with the FBI, there appears to have been no further FBI interaction or contact with
Steele.
Former CIA Contractor Worked for Fusion GPS
Notably, eight months before Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele, Simpson had hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of then-Associate Deputy
Attorney General Bruce Ohr, to work for his firm as a researcher in October 2015. It was at this time that Fusion GPS was retained
by the Washington Free Beacon to engage in research on the Trump campaign.
Prior to joining Fusion GPS, Nellie had worked as an independent contractor for an internal open-source division of the CIA, Open
Source Works, from 2008 to at least June 2010; it appears likely she remained in that role into 2014.
Nellie told congressional investigators, in her Oct. 19, 2018, closed-door testimony, that part of her work for Fusion GPS was
to research the Trump 2016 presidential campaign, including campaign associate Carter Page, early campaign supporter Lt. Gen. Michael
Flynn, and campaign manager Paul Manafort, as well as Trump's family members, including some of his children.
Additionally, email communications between her and Bruce Ohr show that she routinely sent her husband at the DOJ articles on Russia
-- most carrying a similar negative slant. The emails continued through the duration of Nellie's employment with Fusion GPS and usually
contained a brief, often one-line comment from Nellie.
In her testimony, Nellie described her work as online open-source efforts that utilized "Russian sources, media, social media,
government, you know, business registers, legal databases, all kinds of things." Ohr said that she would "write occasional reports
based on the open-source research that I described about Donald Trump's relationships with various people in Russia."
The work Nellie conducted for Fusion GPS matches the same skill set used when she worked for Open Source Works, which is a division
within the CIA that uses open-source information to produce intelligence products.
When asked how she came to be hired by Fusion GPS and who had approached her, Nellie responded, "Nobody approached me," telling
investigators that it was she who had initiated contact and approached Fusion GPS after reading an article on Simpson.
Nellie would continue to work for Fusion GPS until September 2016. By this time, Simpson and Steele already had started working
on pushing the Steele dossier into the FBI.
Following the end of her employment with Fusion GPS, Nellie provided Bruce with a memory stick that contained all of the research
she had compiled during her time at the firm. Bruce then gave the memory stick to the FBI, through his handler, Joe Pientka.
Bruce Ohr Becomes a Conduit
Nearly a month after Gaeta brought back the reports that Steele provided in London, Simpson and Steele decided to pursue a new
channel into the FBI through Bruce Ohr. Bruce had known Steele since at least 2007, when they met during an "official meeting" while
Steele was still employed by the British government as an MI6 agent. Steele had already been in contact with Bruce via email in early
2016. Notably, most of these prior communications appeared to discuss Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska and his ongoing efforts to
obtain a U.S. visa.
On July 29, 2016, Steele
wrote to Bruce, saying that he would "be in DC at short notice on business," and asked to meet with both Bruce and his wife.
On July 30, 2016, the Ohrs met Steele for breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. Also present at the breakfast meeting was a fourth individual,
described by Bruce as "an associate of Mr. Steele's, another gentleman, younger fellow. I didn't catch his name." Nellie testified
that Steele's associate had a British accent.
The timing of the July 30 breakfast meeting is of particular note, as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation, "Crossfire
Hurricane," was formally opened the following day, on July 31, 2016, by FBI agent Peter Strzok.
According to a transcript of Bruce's testimony before Congress, Steele
relayed information from his dossier at this meeting and claimed that "a former head of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service,
the SVR, had stated to someone that they had Donald Trump over a barrel."
Steele also referenced Deripaska's business dealings with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and foreign policy adviser Carter
Page's meetings in Moscow.
Lastly, Bruce noted that Steele told him he had been in contact with the FBI but now had additional reports. "Chris Steele had
provided some reports to the FBI, I think two, but that Glenn Simpson had more," he said.
Immediately following the Ohrs' breakfast meeting with Steele, Bruce Ohr reached out to FBI Deputy Director McCabe and the two
met in McCabe's office -- sometime between July 30 and the first days of August. Also present at this meeting was FBI lawyer Page,
who had previously worked for Bruce Ohr at the DOJ, where he was her direct supervisor for five to six years.
Bruce Ohr would later testify that during the July/August meeting, he told McCabe that his wife, Nellie, worked for Fusion, noting,
"I wanted the FBI to be aware of any possible bias." FBI General Counsel Baker, who reviewed a portion of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act (FISA) application to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page -- which relied in part on the information from
Steele -- told congressional investigators that he was never told of Ohr's concerns regarding possible bias and conflicts of interest.
On Aug. 15, 2016, a week or two following Bruce Ohr's meeting with McCabe, Strzok would send the now-infamous "insurance policy"
text referencing McCabe to Lisa Page:
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office – that there's no way he gets elected – but I'm afraid
we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
On Aug. 22, Bruce Ohr had a meeting with Simpson. Ohr would later discuss that meeting during his testimony:
"I don't know exactly what Chris Steele was thinking, of course, but I knew that Chris Steele was working for Glenn Simpson, and
that Glenn might have additional information that Chris either didn't have or was not authorized to prevent [present], give me, or
whatever."
It was at this meeting that Simpson first mentioned Belarusan-American businessman Sergei Millian and former Trump attorney Michael
Cohen.
During this same period in late August 2016, Brennan began briefing members of the Gang of Eight on the FBI's counterintelligence
investigation, through a series of meetings in August and September 2016. Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately,
calling into question whether each of the members received the same information. Efforts by Democrats to
block the release of transcripts from each meeting are ongoing. Comey, however, did not notify Congress of the FBI investigation
until early March 2017, and it's entirely possible he was unaware of Brennan's private briefings during the summer of 2016.
During her testimony, FBI lawyer Lisa Page was questioned by Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) in relation to an Aug. 25, 2016, text
message that read, "What are you doing after the CH brief?" CH almost certainly referred to Crossfire Hurricane.
Lisa Page then was asked about an event that took place on the same day as the "CH brief" -- a briefing provided by Brennan to
then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid:
"You give a brief on August the 25th. Director Brennan is giving a brief. It's not a Gang of Eight brief. It is a one-on-one,
from what we can tell, a one-on-one briefing with Harry Reid at that point."
According to Meadows, Brennan briefed Reid on the Steele dossier:
"We have documents that would suggest that in that briefing the dossier was mentioned to Harry Reid and then obviously we're going
to have to have conversations. Does that surprise you that Director Brennan would be aware [of the dossier]?"
Lisa Page appeared genuinely surprised that Brennan would have been aware of the dossier's existence at this early point, telling
Meadows: "The FBI got this information from our source. If the CIA had another source of that information, I am neither aware of
that nor did the CIA provide it to us if they did."
She elaborated further: "As of August of 2016, I don't know who Christopher Steele is. I don't know that he's an FBI source. I
don't know what he does. I have never heard of him in all of my life."
This claim by Page seems incongruous when viewed against Bruce Ohr's testimony that he met with Page and McCabe in the first days
of August following his July 30, 2016, breakfast with Steele:
"My initial meeting was with Mr. McCabe and with Lisa Page.
"I was telling them about what I was hearing from Chris Steele."
Meanwhile, Brennan's briefing prompted Reid to write not one but two letters to Comey. Both demanded that Comey commence an investigation,
with the details to be made public.
Reid's first letter
, which touched on Carter Page, was sent on Aug. 27, 2016. Reid's
second letter
, far angrier and declaring Comey to be in possession of material information, was sent on Oct. 30, 2016.
There had been
reports that Comey had been considering closing the FBI investigation of Trump, something Brennan strongly opposed. Now, with
Reid's letters sent, that avenue was effectively closed. The termination of the FBI's Trump–Russia investigation would be all but
impossible in the face of Reid's public demands.
Perhaps it was in response to Reid's Aug. 27 letter that the FBI suddenly reached out to Steele in September 2016, asking him
for all the information in his possession. The team working on Crossfire Hurricane received documents and a briefing from Steele
in mid-September, reportedly
at a meeting in Rome, where Gaeta also was present.
During Lisa Page's testimony, she appeared to corroborate this account, noting that the team received the "reports that are known
as the dossier from an FBI agent who is Christopher Steele's handler in September of 2016." She would later clarify the timing, noting
"we received the reporting from Steele in mid-September." A
text sent to her by FBI agent Peter
Strzok on Oct. 12, 2016, may provide us with the actual date:
"We got the reporting on Sept 19. Looks like [redacted] got it early August."
Steele had produced eight reports from June 20, 2016, through the end of August 2016 (there also is one undated report included
in the dossier). No further reports were generated by Steele until Sept. 14, when he suddenly wrote three separate memos in one day.
One of the memos referenced a Russian bank named Alfa Bank, misspelled as "Alpha" in his memo. Steele's sudden burst of productivity
was likely done in preparation for his Sept. 19 meeting in Rome with the FBI.
The impact of Brennan's potential knowledge of the dossier in August 2016 should not be underestimated. As Brennan
testified to Congress, his briefing to the Gang of Eight
was done in consultation with the Obama administration:
"Through the so-called Gang-of-Eight process we kept Congress apprised of these issues as we identified them. Again, in consultation
with the White House, I personally briefed the full details of our understanding of Russian attempts to interfere in the election
to congressional leadership.
"Given the highly sensitive nature of what was an active counter-intelligence case, involving an ongoing Russian effort, to interfere
in our presidential election, the full details of what we knew at the time were shared only with those members of Congress."
As the dossier was making its way into the FBI, the agency began its preparations to obtain a FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser
Carter Page, who was surveilled under Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
According to Baker's testimony, it appears that the FBI began to set its sights on Carter Page in the summer of 2016. When asked
how he had first gained knowledge of the FBI's intention to pursue a FISA warrant on Carter Page, Baker testified that it came through
his familiarity with the FBI's investigation:
Mr. Baker: " I learned of -- so I was aware when the FBI first started to focus on Carter Page, I was aware of that because
it was part of the broader investigation that we were conducting. So I was aware that we were investigating him. And then at some
point in time –"
Rep. Meadows: "But that was many years ago. That was in 2014. Or are you talking about 2016?"
Mr. Baker: " I am talking about 2016 in the summer."
Rep. Meadows: "Okay."
Mr. Baker: " Yeah. And so I was aware of the investigation, and then at some point in time, as part of the regular briefings
on the case, the briefers mentioned that they were going to pursue a FISA."
It appears the FBI, and possibly the CIA, began to focus on Carter Page earlier than Baker was aware. Carter Page had been invited
some months prior to a July 2016 symposium held at Cambridge regarding the upcoming election. The speaker list was notable:
Madeleine Albright (former U.S. secretary of state)
Vin Weber (Republican Party strategist and former congressman)
Peter Ammon (German ambassador to the UK)
Sir Richard Dearlove (former head of MI6 and Steele's former boss)
Bridget Kendall (BBC diplomatic correspondent and the next master of Peterhouse College)
Sir Malcolm Rifkind (former defense and foreign secretary)
Carter Page attended the event just four days after his July 2016 Moscow trip, and it was during this time in the UK that he first
encountered Stefan Halper. Page's Moscow trip would later figure prominently in the Steele dossier.
Halper, who has been outed as an FBI informant, stayed in contact with Carter Page for the next 14 months, severing ties exactly
as the final FISA warrant on Page expired.
Trisha Anderson, the principal deputy general counsel for the FBI and head of the bureau's National Security and Cyber Law Branch,
approved the application for a warrant to spy on Carter Page before it went to FBI Director James Comey.
According to Anderson, pre-approvals for the Carter Page FISA warrant were provided by both McCabe and Deputy Attorney General
Sally Yates, before the FISA application was ever presented to Anderson for review.
"[M]y boss and my boss' boss had already reviewed and approved this application. And, in fact, the Deputy Attorney General, who
had the authority to sign the application, to be the substantive approver on the FISA application itself, had approved the application.
And that typically would not have been the case before I did that," said Anderson.
The unusual preliminary reviews and approvals from both McCabe and Yates appear to have had a substantial impact on the normal
review process, leading other individuals like Anderson to believe that the warrant application was more vetted than it really was.
Anderson also testified that she had not read the Carter Page FISA application prior to signing off on it and passing it along
to Comey for the final FBI signature. According to FBI lawyer Sally Moyer, the underlying Woods file (a document that provides facts
supporting the allegations made in a FISA application) was only read by the originating agent and the supervisory special agent in
the field. Moyer also noted that the Woods file relating to the Page FISA had not been reviewed or audited by anyone.
The Carter Page FISA application was largely reliant on the Steele dossier, which was unverified at the time of its submission
to the FISA court and remains unverified by the FBI to this day. Circular reporting, provided by Steele himself, was used as corroboration
of the dossier. Additionally, Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whose conversation with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer
was used to open the FBI's July 31, 2016, counterintelligence investigation, is referenced in the FISA, yet there "is no evidence
of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos," according to a House Intelligence Committee memo.
Moyer testified that without the Steele dossier, the Carter Page application would have had a "50/50" chance of achieving the
probable cause standard before the FISA court. Notably, the Steele dossier is generally considered to have been largely discredited.
On Sept. 19, shortly after Steele completed his latest three memos, FBI General Counsel James Baker met with Perkins Coie partner
Michael Sussmann, the lawyer the DNC turned to on April 28, 2016, after discovering the alleged hacking of their servers.
Sussman, who sought out the meeting, presented Baker with documents that Baker described as "a stack of material I don't know
maybe a quarter inch half inch thick something like that clipped together, and then I believe there was some type of electronic media,
as well, a disk or something."
The information that Sussmann gave to Baker was related to what Baker described as "a surreptitious channel of communications"
between the Trump Organization and "a Russian organization associated with the Russian Government."
Baker was describing alleged communications between Alfa Bank and a server in the Trump Tower. The allegations, which were investigated
by the FBI and proven to be false, were widely covered in the media.
Just four days earlier, on Sept. 14, Steele mentioned Alfa Bank (misspelled as Alpha bank) in one of his memos.
According to Baker's testimony, there appears to have been at least three meetings with Sussmann -- the first in person and at
least two subsequent meetings by phone. In either the second or third conversation, Baker came to understand The New York Times was
also in possession of Sussmann's information. As would become clear later, other members of the media also had this same information.
As Baker was meeting with Sussmann, Steele was back in Washington for a series of meetings that included his DOJ contact, Bruce
Ohr.
On Sept. 23, 2016, Bruce Ohr again met with Steele for breakfast, telling lawmakers during testimony, "Steele was in Washington,
D.C., again, and he reached out to me, and, again, we met for breakfast, and he provided some additional information." Ohr said this
meeting concerned similar topics that were discussed at the July 30, 2016, meeting but did not provide further details.
Bruce Ohr would also meet either that same month or in early October with FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and DOJ
career officials from the criminal division, Bruce Swartz, Zainab Ahmad, and Andrew Weissman (Ohr testified that he was unsure whether
Weismann was at this or a later meeting). Both Weissman and Ahmad would later become part of the team assembled by special counsel
Robert Mueller.
Steele's Meetings With the Media
On the same day that Bruce Ohr met with Christopher Steele for breakfast, on Sept. 23, 2016, Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff
published an article about Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page. The article, headlined "
U.S. Intel Officials Probe Ties Between Trump Adviser and Kremlin ," was based on an interview with Steele. Isikoff's article
would later be used by the FBI in the FISA spy warrant application on Carter Page as corroborating information.
Following the publication of the Isikoff article, the Hillary for America campaign released a
statement on the same day that touted
Isikoff's "bombshell report," with the full article attached.
A second lengthy article was published on Sept. 23, by Politico: "
Who Is Carter
Page? The Mystery of Trump's Man in Moscow ," by Julia Ioffe. This article was particularly interesting as it appeared to highlight
media efforts by Fusion GPS:
"As I started looking into Page, I began getting calls from two separate 'corporate investigators' digging into what they claim
are all kinds of shady connections Page has to all kinds of shady Russians. One is working on behalf of various unnamed Democratic
donors; the other won't say who turned him on to Page's scent. Both claimed to me that the FBI was investigating Page for allegedly
meeting with Igor Sechin and Sergei Ivanov, who was until recently Putin's chief of staff -- both of whom are on the sanctions list
-- when Page was in Moscow in July for that speech."
Ioffe noted that "seemingly everyone I talked to had also talked to the Washington Post, and then there were these corporate investigators
who drew a dark and complex web of Page's connections."
Her article also mentioned rumors regarding Alfa Bank:
"In the interest of due diligence, I also tried to run down the rumors being handed me by the corporate investigators: that Russia's
Alfa Bank paid for the trip as a favor to the Kremlin; that Page met with Sechin and Ivanov in Moscow; that he is now being investigated
by the FBI for those meetings because Sechin and Ivanov were both sanctioned for Russia's invasion of Ukraine."
It was probably during this same trip to Washington that Steele
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya, whom Steele had known since at least 2010.
Winer had received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from longtime Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele then
shared this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it as a means to corroborate Steele's own dossier.
Steele also met with U.S. media during his visit to Washington, doing so "at Fusion's instruction." According to
UK Court documents , Steele testified
that he "briefed" The New York Times, The Washington Post, Yahoo News, The New Yorker, and CNN at the end of September 2016. Steele
would engage in a second round of media contact in mid-October 2016, meeting again with The New York Times, The Washington Post,
and Yahoo News. Steele testified that all these meetings were "conducted verbally in person."
As Steele's media meetings were going on, FBI General Counsel James Baker learned that Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann was
also speaking with reporters from The New York Times regarding the Alfa Bank information that Sussmann had provided to the FBI. After
some internal discussion, the FBI approached both Sussmann and The New York Times, asking that any story be held until the FBI had
time to complete an investigation into the documents provided by Sussmann. It appears that an agreement was reached, and the FBI
began to look into the claims regarding Alfa Bank and the server at Trump Tower.
But Sussman wasn't the only one that Baker, currently the subject of an ongoing criminal leak investigation, was speaking with.
According to congressional investigators, beginning sometime in September 2016 -- before the presidential election -- Baker began
having conversations with his old friend and journalist, David Corn of Mother Jones.
According to Baker, these conversations were in relation to ongoing FBI matters:
Rep. Jordan: " Did you talk to Mr. Corn prior to the election about anything, anything related to FBI matters? Not -- so we're
not going to ask about the Steele dossier. Anything about FBI business, FBI matters?"
Mr. Baker: " Yes."
Rep. Jordan: " Yes. And do you know -- can you give me some dates or the number of times that you talked to Mr. Corn about
FBI matters leading up to the 2016 Presidential election?"
Mr. Baker: " I don't remember, Congressman."
By Oct. 31, 2016, the FBI had apparently wrapped up their investigation into the Alfa Bank allegations, finding no evidence of
anything untoward in the process. It was on this day that three separate articles on Alfa Bank would be published.
The first, " Investigating
Donald Trump, F.B.I. Sees No Clear Link to Russia " by The New York Times, appeared to be an updated version of the article they
had intended to publish before the FBI asked them to delay their reporting. It stated the following:
"In classified sessions in August and September, intelligence officials also briefed congressional leaders on the possibility
of financial ties between Russians and people connected to Mr. Trump. They focused particular attention on what cyberexperts said
appeared to be a mysterious computer back channel between the Trump Organization and the Alfa Bank, which is one of Russia's biggest
banks and whose owners have longstanding ties to Mr. Putin."
The reference to "classified sessions in August and September" is likely in relation to the series of Gang of Eight briefings
that former CIA Director John Brennan engaged in at that time -- including his briefing to then-Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
The article continued:
"F.B.I. officials spent weeks examining computer data showing an odd stream of activity to a Trump Organization server and Alfa
Bank. Computer logs obtained by The New York Times show that two servers at Alfa Bank sent more than 2,700 'look-up' messages --
a first step for one system's computers to talk to another -- to a Trump-connected server beginning in the spring. But the F.B.I.
ultimately concluded that there could be an innocuous explanation, like a marketing email or spam, for the computer contacts."
The second article,
"Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia?" by Slate Magazine, was solely focused on the allegations regarding a server in
the Trump Tower that had allegedly been communicating with a server at Alfa Bank in Russia.
Immediately following the publication of the Slate article, Clinton
posted a tweet that included a statement
from Jake Sullivan, a senior policy adviser:
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
Sullivan's statement referenced the Slate article and included the following:
"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert
server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.
"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization
felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."
The Alfa Bank story took off -- despite the same-day story from The New York Times that specifically noted the FBI had investigated
that matter and found nothing untoward.
"In recent weeks, reporters in Washington have pursued anonymous
online reports that a computer server related
to the Trump Organization engaged in a high level of activity with servers connected to Alfa Bank, the largest private bank in Russia.
On Monday, a Slate
investigation
detailed the pattern of unusual server activity but concluded, 'We don't yet know what this [Trump] server was
for, but it deserves further explanation.' In an email to Mother Jones, Hope Hicks, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, maintains, 'The
Trump Organization is not sending or receiving any communications from this email server. The Trump Organization has no communication
or relationship with this entity or any Russian entity.'"
More notably, Corn's article also provided the first public reporting on the existence of the Steele dossier:
"A former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones
that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian
government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump -- and that the FBI requested more information from him."
As it turns out, Corn had detailed, first-hand knowledge of the dossier. According to testimony from Baker, Corn had been provided
with parts of the dossier by Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Baker knew of this fact, because within a week of publishing his article,
Corn passed these dossier parts on to Baker personally:
Rep. Jordan: " Prior to the election Mr. Corn had a copy of the dossier and was talking to you about giving that to you so
the FBI would have it. Is that all right? I mean all accurate."
Mr. Baker: " My recollection is that he had part of the dossier, that we had other parts already, and that we got still other
parts from other people, and that -- and nevertheless some of the parts that David Corn gave us were parts that we did not have from
another source?"
Steele had written four memos after the FBI team received his information in mid-September. All of the memos were written in October
-- on the 12th, 18th, 19th, and the 20th. It is possible that these were the memos passed along to Baker by Corn.
Baker testified that he received elements of the dossier from Corn that were not in the FBI's possession at the time. He said
that he immediately turned this information over to leadership within the FBI, noting, "I think it was Bill Priestap," the head of
the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
The use of personal relationships as a mechanism to transmit outside information to the FBI was actually noted by Baker, who said
of Corn: "Even though he was my friend, I was also an FBI official. He knew that. And so he wanted to somehow get that into the hands
of the FBI."
Bruce Ohr's FBI Handler
Christopher Steele was terminated as a source by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016, for communicating with the media. Despite this, DOJ
official Bruce Ohr and Steele communicated regularly for another full year, until November 2017.
On Nov. 21, 2016, Ohr had a meeting with FBI agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and was introduced to FBI agent Joe
Pientka, who became Ohr's FBI handler. Pientka was also present with Strzok during the Jan. 24, 2017, interview of
Trump's national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn .
The next day, Nov. 22, 2016, Ohr met alone with Pientka. Ohr would continue to relay his communications with Steele to the FBI
through Pientka, who then recorded them in FD-302 forms. What Ohr didn't know was that Pientka was transmitting all the information
directly to Strzok.
Ohr, in his testimony, detailed his interactions with Steele and Glenn Simpson, as well as his communications with officials at
the FBI and DOJ. Notably, Ohr repeatedly stated that he never vetted any of the information provided by either Steele or Simpson.
He simply turned it over or relayed it to the FBI -- usually to Pientka -- but Ohr also testified that "at least on two occasions
I was handed onto a new agent."
Sometime in late 2016, his wife, Nellie Ohr, provided him with a memory stick containing all of her research that she had compiled
while employed at Fusion GPS. Bruce Ohr testified he gave the memory stick to Pientka. Nellie Ohr had left Fusion in September 2016.
Through Pientka, Strzok now had all of Nellie Ohr's Fusion research in his possession.
On Dec. 10, 2016, Bruce Ohr met with Simpson, who gave him a memory stick that Ohr believed contained a copy of the Steele dossier.
Ohr also passed this second memory stick along to Pientka.
On Jan. 20, 2017, Ohr had one final communication with Simpson, a phone call that took place on the same day as Trump's inauguration.
Ohr testified that Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson was concerned that one of Steele's sources was about to be exposed through
the pending publication of an article:
Mr. Ohr: " He says something along the lines of, I -- there's going to be some reporting in the next few days that's going
to -- could expose the source, and the source could be in personal danger."
Rep. Meadows: " And why was he concerned about that source being exposed?"
Mr. Ohr: " I think he was aware of some kind of article that was likely to come out in the next, you know, few days or something."
Apparently, Simpson's information was at least partly accurate. On Jan. 24, 2017, The Wall Street Journal
reported that Sergei Millian, a Belarusan-American businessman and onetime Russian government translator, was both "Source D"
and "Source E" in the dossier. It remains unknown exactly how Simpson knew in advance that Millian would be outed as a source.
But there are some questions as to the accuracy of the Journal's reporting. The dossier appears to conflict with the newspaper's
article in at least one aspect. According to the dossier, Source E was used as confirmation for Source D -- meaning they can't be
the same person.
McCain, the Dossier, and a UK Connection
Simpson and Steele were carefully thorough in their dissemination efforts. The dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several
different sources.
One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood may have previously
worked on behalf of Steele's company, Orbis Business Intelligence; he was referenced in a
UK court filing as an associate of
Orbis. Wood was also referred to as an adviser to Orbis in a deposition by an associate of late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), David
Kramer.
Kramer knew Wood previously from their mutual expertise on Russia. Kramer said in his deposition, which was part of a defamation
lawsuit against BuzzFeed News, that Wood told him that "he was aware of information that he thought I should be aware of and that
Senator McCain might be interested in."
McCain, Wood, and Kramer would meet later that afternoon, on Nov. 19, 2016, in a private meeting room at the Halifax International
Security Forum in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Wood told both Kramer and McCain that "he was aware of this information that had been gathered that raised the possibility of
collusion and compromising material on the president-elect. And he explained that he knew the person who gathered the information
and felt that the person was of the utmost credibility," Kramer said.
Kramer ascribed the word "collusion" three times to Wood in his deposition. He also said that Wood mentioned the possible existence
of a video "of a sexual nature" that might have "shown the president-elect in a compromising situation." According to Kramer, Wood
said that "if it existed, that it was from a hotel in Moscow when president-elect, before he was president-elect, had been in Moscow."
No such video was ever uncovered or given to Kramer.
Kramer testified that following the description of the video, "the senator turned to me and asked if I would go to London to meet
with what turned out to be Mr. Steele."
Kramer traveled to London to meet with Steele on Nov. 28, 2016. Kramer reviewed all the memos during his meeting with Steele but
wasn't provided with a physical copy of the dossier.
When Kramer returned to Washington, he was provided with a copy of the dossier -- which, at that point, consisted of 16 memos
-- during a meeting with Simpson on Nov. 29, 2016. Kramer also testified that there was another individual, "a male," present at
the meeting.
Interestingly, Kramer testified that Simpson gave him two copies of the dossier, noting that Simpson told him that "one had more
things blacked out than the other." Kramer said, "It wasn't entirely clear to me why there were two versions of this, so but I took
both versions."
Kramer noted that Simpson, who was aware the dossier was being given to McCain, said the dossier "was a very sensitive document
and needed to be handled very carefully."
Despite that warning, Kramer showed the dossier to a number of journalists and had discussions with at least 14 members of the
media, along with some individuals in the U.S. government.
Kramer testified that he gave a physical copy of the dossier to reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy; to Fred Hiatt,
the editor of the Washington Post editorial page; Alan Cullison of The Wall Street Journal; Bob Little at NPR; Carl Bernstein at
CNN; and Ken Bensinger at BuzzFeed. It's possible that Kramer gave copies to other reporters as well.
Kramer said that Simpson and Steele were aware of most of these contacts, but that Kramer hadn't told either of them that he gave
the dossier to NPR. He also noted that Steele had been in contact with Bernstein at CNN and that the CNN and BuzzFeed meetings occurred
at Steele's request. Steele told Kramer that he and Bensinger "had been in touch during the FIFA investigation; they got to know
each other that way."
According to Kramer, he didn't believe that Fusion GPS and Simpson were aware of these two meetings with CNN and BuzzFeed.
Kramer testified that he, McCain, and McCain's chief of staff, Christopher Brose, met to review the dossier on Nov. 30, 2016.
Kramer suggested that McCain "provide a copy of [the dossier] to the director of the FBI and the director of the CIA." McCain later
passed a copy of the dossier to James Comey on Dec. 9, 2016. It isn't known whether McCain also provided a copy to then-CIA Director
John Brennan. Notably, Brennan did attach a two-page summary of the dossier to the intelligence community assessment that he delivered
to outgoing President Barack Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.
Kramer said that he wasn't aware of the content of McCain's Dec. 9 discussion with Comey, noting that he "did not get any readout
from the senator on the meeting, but just that it had happened."
Kramer did, however, provide updates to both Steele and Simpson regarding the status of McCain's meeting with Comey, in subsequent
discussions with Simpson and Steele:
"It was mostly just to inform him about whether or not the senator had transfer -- transmitted the document to the FBI. Both he
and Mr. Steele were -- I kept them apprised of whether the senator was -- where the senator was in terms of his contact with the
FBI."
The implications of this statement are significant. Kramer, a private citizen, was providing updates to a former British spy as
to what a sitting senator, and chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, was saying to the director of the FBI.
Other members of the media also had advance knowledge of McCain's intention to meet with Comey. Kramer testified that both Mother
Jones reporter David Corn and Guardian reporter Julian Borger came to meet with him. According to Kramer, "They were mostly interested
in Senator McCain and his, whether he had given it to Director Comey or not."
Several days after McCain, Brose, and Kramer met to discuss the dossier, Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Victoria
Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasian Affairs, and Celeste Wallander, the senior director for Russia and
Central Asia on the National Security Council.
The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier "was being taken seriously." Both Nuland and Wallander were previously
aware of the dossier's existence, and both officials previously knew Steele, whom "they believed to be credible." Kramer said he
didn't physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander "around New Years" and "gave her a copy
of the document"
Nuland had actually
received a copy of the earlier Steele memos back in July 2016.
Steele produced a final memo dated Dec. 13, 2016. According to
UK court documents , Kramer, on behalf
of McCain, had asked Steele to provide any further intelligence that he had gathered relating to "alleged Russian interference in
the US presidential election." Notably, it appears it was this request from McCain that led Steele to produce his Dec. 13 memo.
Although Kramer didn't provide a date, he said he received the final Steele memo sometime after "Senator McCain had provided the
copy to Director Comey." We know that Kramer received the final memo prior to Dec. 29 -- when Kramer met with BuzzFeed's Bensinger.
Kramer testified that Bensinger "said he wanted to read them, he asked me if he could take photos of them on his -- I assume it
was an iPhone. I asked him not to. He said he was a slow reader, he wanted to read it. And so I said, you know, I got a phone call
to make, and I had to go to the bathroom " Kramer said that he "left him to read it for 20, 30 minutes."
Kramer also testified that besides the reporters, he gave a final copy of the dossier to two other people in early January 2017:
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Il.) and House Speaker Paul Ryan's chief of staff, Jonathan Burks.
James Clapper Leaks Details of Obama–Trump Briefings
The ICA on alleged Russian hacking was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, outgoing president Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the assessment
-- and the attached summation of the dossier -- with national security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney
General Sally Yates. Rice would later send herself an
email documenting the meeting.
The following day, CIA Director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary
of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the
dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey, Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the ICA and the Steele
dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
that he had done so at the request of Clapper and Brennan, "because that was the part that the leaders of the intelligence community
agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo :
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write that
the FBI has the material."
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump on it that
CNN reported
on the dossier. The House Intelligence Committee report on Russian election interference confirmed that Clapper personally leaked
confirmation of the dossier, along with Comey's meeting with Trump, to CNN:
"The Committee's investigation revealed that President-elect Trump was indeed briefed on the contents of the Steele dossier and
when questioned by the Committee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper admitted that he confirmed the existence
of the dossier to the media."
Additionally, the House intelligence report shows Clapper appears to have been the direct source for CNN's Jake Tapper and his
Jan. 10 story that disclosed the existence of the dossier:
"When initially asked about leaks related to the ICA in July 2017, former DNI Clapper flatly denied 'discuss[ing] the dossier
[compiled by Steele] or any other intelligence related to Russia hacking of the 2016 election with journalists.' Clapper subsequently
acknowledged discussing the 'dossier with CNN journalist Jake Tapper,' and admitted that he might have spoken with other journalists
about the same topic.
"Clapper's discussion with Tapper took place in early January 2017, around the time IC leaders briefed President Obama and President-elect
Trump, on 'the Christopher Steele information,' a two-page summary of which was 'enclosed in' the highly-classified version of the
ICA."
The allegations within the dossier were made public, and with reporting of the briefings by intelligence community leaders, instant
credibility was given to the dossier's assertions.
Immediately following the CNN story,
BuzzFeed published the Steele dossier, and the Trump–Russia conspiracy was pushed into the mainstream.
David Kramer was asked about his reaction when CNN broke the story on the dossier. According to his deposition, Kramer stated,
"I believe my words were 'Holy [expletive].'"
Kramer, who was actually meeting with The Guardian's Julian Borger when CNN reported on the dossier, said that he quickly spoke
with Steele, who "was shocked."
On the following day, Jan. 11, 2017, Clapper issued a statement condemning the leaks -- without revealing the fact that he was
the source of the leak.
On Nov. 17, 2016, Clapper submitted his resignation as director of national intelligence; his resignation became effective on
Jan. 20, 2017. Later that year, CNN hired Clapper as its national security analyst.
The Effort to Remove General Flynn
Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, then-national security adviser to President Donald Trump, was
interviewed on Jan. 24, 2017, by FBI agents Peter Strzok and Joe Pientka about two December 2016 conversations that Flynn had
had with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak.
Details of the phone conversation had leaked to the media. Flynn ultimately pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI regarding
his conversations with Kislyak. It remains unknown to this day who leaked Flynn's classified call -- a far more serious felony violation.
The Washington Post reported in January 2017 that the FBI had found
no evidence of wrongdoing in Flynn's actual call with the Russian ambassador. The call, and the matters discussed in it, broke
no laws.
Flynn has been portrayed in the media as being suspiciously close to Russia; a dinner in Moscow that occurred in late 2015 is
frequently cited as evidence of this.
On Dec. 10, 2015, Flynn attended an event in Moscow to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Russian television network RT. Flynn,
who was seated next to Russian President Vladimir Putin for the culminating dinner, was also interviewed on national security matters
by an RT correspondent. Flynn's speaker's bureau, Leading Authorities Inc., was paid $45,000 for the event and Flynn received $33,000
of the total amount.
Seated at the same table with Flynn was Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate in the 2016 election. By all accounts, including
Stein's , Flynn and Putin didn't engage in any real conversation. At the time, Flynn's trip didn't garner significant attention.
But it would later be used by the media and the Clinton campaign to push the Russia-collusion narrative.
Notably, as stated
by lawyer Robert Kelner, Flynn disclosed his Moscow trip to the Defense Intelligence Agency before he traveled there and provided
a full briefing upon his return:
"As has previously been reported, General Flynn briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a component agency of the DoD, extensively
regarding the RT speaking event trip both before and after the trip, and he answered any questions that were posed by the DIA concerning
the trip during those briefings."
Flynn's trip to Russia was first brought to broader attention on July 18, 2016, during a
live interview at
the Republican National Convention with Yahoo News reporter Michael Isikoff.
The Isikoff interview took place on July 18, 2016. Unknown at the time, the matter had also captured the attention of Christopher
Steele, who had begun publishing his dossier memos on June 20, 2016.
Contained within an Aug. 10, 2016,
memo was this initial
reference to Flynn:
"Kremlin engaging with several high profile US players, including STEIN, PAGE and (former DIA Director Michael Flynn) and funding
their recent visits to Moscow."
In addition to the obvious questions raised by the timing of Flynn's name appearing in Steele's Aug. 10 memo, is the manner in
which Flynn is denoted. All other names are capitalized, in the manner of intelligence briefings. Flynn's name isn't capitalized
and, in one case, appears within parentheses.
Steele met with Yahoo News' Isikoff in September 2016 and gave him information from the dossier. The resulting Sept. 23, 2016,
article from Isikoff was then cited by the FBI as validating Steele's claims and was featured in the original
FISA application , and its three subsequent
renewals , for a warrant to spy on Trump campaign
foreign policy adviser Carter Page.
Steele wasn't the only person Isikoff was working with. On April 26, 2016, Isikoff
published a story
on Yahoo News about Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a Democratic
National Committee (DNC) email leaked by Wikileaks that
Isikoff had been working with Alexandra Chalupa, a Ukrainian-American operative who was doing consulting work for the DNC. Chalupa
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose alleged ties between Trump, Manafort, and
Russia.
The obvious question remains: How did the information on Flynn make its way into the dossier at the time it did, and who provided
the information to Steele?
Flynn's 2015 dinner in Moscow was initially used to implicate the Trump campaign's ties to Russia. It was then
used as a means to cast doubts on Flynn's ability as Trump's national security adviser. Following Flynn's resignation, it was
then used as a means to pursue the ongoing collusion narrative that gained full strength in the early days of the Trump administration.
"In an extraordinary report released last week, the agencies
bluntly accused
the Russian government of having worked to undermine American democracy and promote the candidacy of Mr. Trump.
The report is likely to renew questions about Mr. Flynn's avowed eagerness to work with Russia, and his dismissal of concerns about
President Vladimir V. Putin."
Flynn would resign from his position as national security adviser in February 2017. The sequence of events leading to his resignation
were both coordinated and orchestrated, with acting Attorney General Sally Yates playing a leading role.
On Jan. 12, 2017, Flynn's Dec. 29, 2016, call with Kislyak was
leaked to The Washington Post. The article portrayed Flynn as undermining Obama's Russia sanctions that had been imposed on the
same day as Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador.
On Jan. 15, five days before Trump's inauguration, Vice President Mike Pence
appeared
on "Face the Nation" to defend Flynn's calls.
A few days later, on Jan. 19, Obama officials -- Yates, Clapper, Brennan and Comey -- met to discuss Flynn's situation. The concern
they
reportedly discussed was that Flynn might have misled Trump administration officials regarding the nature of his call with Kislyak.
Yates, Clapper, and Brennan supported informing the Trump administration of their concerns. Comey took a dissenting view. On Jan
23, Yates again pressured Comey, telling the FBI director that she believed Flynn could be vulnerable to blackmail. At this point,
according to media reports, Comey relented, despite the FBI finding nothing unlawful in the content of Flynn's calls.
Strzok and Pientka, at the instruction of McCabe, interviewed Flynn the following day. According to court documents, McCabe and
other FBI officials "decided the agents would not warn Flynn that it was a crime to lie during an FBI interview because they wanted
Flynn to be relaxed." It was during this interview that Flynn reportedly lied to the FBI.
The DOJ was provided with a detailed briefing of the Flynn interview on the following day. On Jan. 26, Yates contacted White House
counsel Don McGahn, who agreed to meet to discuss the matter. Yates arrived at McGahn's office, bringing Mary McCord, John Carlin's
acting replacement as head of the DOJ's National Security Division.
Yates later testified before Congress that the meeting
surrounded Flynn's phone calls and his FBI interview. She also testified that Flynn's call and subsequent interview "was a topic
of a whole lot of discussion in DOJ and with other members of the intel community." McGahn reportedly asked Yates, "Why does it matter
to the DOJ if one White House official lies to another official?"
McGahn called Yates the following day and asked her to return for a second meeting. Yates returned to the White House without
McCord. McGahn asked to examine the FBI's evidence on Flynn. Yates said she would respond by the following Monday.
Yates failed to provide McGahn with the FBI's evidence on Flynn. From that point, the pressure on Flynn and the Trump administration
escalated -- with help from media reporting.
Flynn resigned on Feb. 13, after it was reported that he had misled Pence about phone conversations he'd had with Kislyak.
The following day, The
New York
Times reported that "phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump's 2016 presidential campaign and
other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according
to four current and former American officials."
With Flynn gone and the Russian narrative firmly established, the conspirators then turned their attention to Trump's newly confirmed
attorney general, Jeff Sessions . On March 1, 2017, The
Washington Post
reported that Sessions had twice had contact with the Russian ambassador, Kislyak. The following day, March 2, Sessions recused
himself from the Russia investigation.
On the same day that Sessions recused himself, Evelyn Farkas, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense, detailed efforts
at hampering the newly installed Trump administration, during a March 2, 2017,
interview with MSNBC , in which she described how the Obama
administration gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as much
intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try to
compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the leaking."
Note that Farkas said "how we knew," not just "what we knew."
Obama Officials Used Unmasking to Target the Trump Campaign
On Tuesday, March 21, 2017, the chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), met
a classified source who showed him "dozens" of intelligence reports. Contained within these reports was evidence of surveillance
on the Trump campaign. Nunes held a
press conference on March 22 highlighting what he had found:
"I recently confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens
involved in the Trump transition. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent
foreign intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting."
In a series of rapid-fire questions and answers, Nunes attempted to elaborate on what he had been shown:
"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying
to get to the bottom of it I think the NSA's going to comply. I am concerned – we don't know whether or not the FBI is going to comply.
I have placed a call, I'm waiting to talk to Director Comey, hopefully later today.
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the President-elect and his team were at least monitored and disseminated
out in intelligence, in what appears to be raw -- well I shouldn't say raw -- but intelligence reporting channels.
"It looks to me like it was all legally collected, but it was essentially a lot of information on the President-elect and his
transition team and what they were doing."
The documents Nunes had been shown highlighted the unmasking activities of the FBI, the Obama administration, and CIA Director
Brennan in relation to the Trump campaign. Although March 2017 would prove chaotic, the Trump administration had survived the first
crucial months, and would now begin to slowly assert its administrative authority.
Comey Testifies No Obstruction by Trump Administration
On May 3, 2017, James Comey
testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under oath, Comey stated that his agency -- and the FBI's investigation -- had
not been pressured by the Trump administration:
Sen. Hirono: " So if the attorney general or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation,
can they halt that FBI investigation?"
Mr. Comey: " In theory, yes."
Sen. Hirono: " Has it happened?"
Mr. Comey: " Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that – without an
appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing
resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason. That would be a very
big deal. It's not happened in my experience."
Less than a week later, on May 9, Trump fired Comey based on a May 8 recommendation by Deputy Attorney General
Rod Rosenstein .
Rosenstein would later
tell members of Congress: "In one of my first meetings with then-Sen. Jeff Sessions last winter, we discussed the need for new
leadership at the FBI. Among the concerns that I recall were to restore the credibility of the FBI, respect the established authority
of the Department of Justice, limit public statements and eliminate leaks."
Regarding the recommendation, Rosenstein said: "I wrote it. I believe it. I stand by it."
McCabe's FBI Reaches Out Again to Steele
Within days of Trump's firing of Comey, the FBI, now under the leadership of acting-FBI Director Andrew McCabe, suddenly decided
to reestablish direct contact with Christopher Steele through DOJ official Bruce Ohr.
The re-engagement attempt came six months after Steele had been formally terminated by the FBI on Nov. 1, 2016.
The FBI's re-engagement of Ohr was highlighted during a congressional review of some text messages between Ohr and Steele:
Mr. Ohr: " The FBI had asked me a few days before, when I reported to them my latest conversation with Chris Steele,
they had had would he -- next time you talk with him, could you ask him if he would be willing to meet again."
Rep. Jordan: " So this is the re-engagement?"
Mr. Ohr: " Yes."
The texts being referenced were sent on May 15, 2017, and refer to a request that Ohr received from the FBI to ask Steele to re-engage
with the FBI in the days after Comey had been fired on May 9.
This was the only time the FBI used Ohr to reach out to Steele.
The Battle Between McCabe and Rosenstein
Two days after Comey was fired, on May 11, 2017, McCabe
testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee. While the hearing's original intent had been to focus on national security
threats, Trump's firing of Comey completely altered the topic of the hearing.
McCabe, who
agreed that he would notify the committee "of any effort to interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation into links between
Russia and the Trump campaign," told members of Congress that there had been "no effort to impede our investigation to date." In
other words, McCabe testified that he was unaware of any evidence of obstruction from Trump or his administration. Notably, Comey's
May 3 testimony may have left McCabe with little choice other than to confirm there had been no obstruction.
McCabe, however, failed to inform the committee that he was actively considering opening an obstruction-of-justice probe of Trump
-- a path he would initiate in a meeting with Rosenstein just five days later.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein allegedly
suggested
to McCabe that he could secretly record Trump. It was at this
meeting that McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president," according to witness
accounts reported by The Washington Post.
In addition to McCabe, Rosenstein, and McCabe's special counsel, Lisa Page, there were one or two others present, including Rosenstein's
chief of staff , James Crowley, and possibly Scott Schools, the senior-most career attorney at the DOJ and a top aide to Rosenstein.
An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post,
framed the conversation between McCabe and Rosenstein in an entirely different light, noting that Rosenstein had responded with
angry sarcasm to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
This was just five days after McCabe had publicly testified that there was no obstruction on the part of the Trump administration.
Sometime later that same day, both Rosenstein and Trump met with former FBI Director Robert Mueller in the Oval Office. The meeting
was reported as being for the FBI director position, but the idea that Mueller would be considered for the FBI director role seems
highly unlikely.
Mueller had previously served as the FBI director from 2001 to 2013 -- two years beyond the normal 10-year tenure for an FBI director.
In 2011, Obama requested that Mueller stay on as FBI director for an additional two years, which required
special congressional approval .
Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel the following day, on May 17, 2017, and in doing so, Rosenstein removed control
of the Trump–Russia investigation from McCabe and put it in the hands of Mueller.
This was confirmed in a recent statement by a DOJ spokesperson, who said, "The deputy attorney general in fact appointed special
counsel Robert Mueller, and directed that Mr. McCabe be removed from any participation in that investigation."
Following the appointment of Mueller as special counsel, it also appears the FBI's efforts to re-engage with Steele abruptly ended.
'There's No Big There There'
We know the FBI hadn't found any evidence of collusion in the May 2017 timeframe. While McCabe was attempting to open an obstruction
investigation, Peter Strzok -- who played a key role in the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump campaign -- texted Lisa
Page about lacking evidence of collusion:
"You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I'd be there, no question. I hesitate, in part, because
of my gut sense and concern there's no big there there."
Page, who was asked about this text during her July 2018 testimony, said, "So I think this represents that even as far as May
of 2017, we still couldn't answer the question."
James Baker, who was questioned about the Strzok text, was then asked if he'd seen any evidence to the contrary. He stumbled a
bit in his reply:
Rep. Meadows: " Do you have any evidence to the contrary that you observed personally in your official capacity?"
Mr. Baker: " So the difficulty I'm having with your question is, what does 'collusion' mean, and what does 'prove' mean? And
so I don't know how to respond to that."
FBI Leadership Speculates on New Trump–Russia Collusion Narrative
In his testimony, Baker disclosed the actual substance of discussions taking place at the upper echelons of the FBI immediately
following Comey's firing -- that Vladimir Putin had ordered Trump to fire Comey:
Mr. Baker: " We discussed, so to the best of my recollection, with the same people I described earlier: Mr. McCabe, possibly
Mr. Gattis [Carl Ghattas, executive assistant director of the National Security Branch], Mr. Priestap, possibly Lisa Page, possibly
Pete Strzok. I don't remember that specifically."
Rep. Ratcliffe: " So there was -- there was a discussion between those folks, possibly all of the folks that you've identified,
about whether or not President Trump had been ordered to fire Jim Comey by the Russian Government?"
Mr. Baker: " I wouldn't say ordered. I guess I would say the words I sort of used earlier, acting at the behest of and somehow
following directions, somehow executing their will, whether -- and so literally an order or not, I don't know. But -- "
Rep. Ratcliffe: " And so -- "
Mr. Baker: " As a -- it was discussed as a theoretical possibility."
Rep. Ratcliffe: " When was it discussed?"
Mr. Baker: "After the firing, like in the aftermath of the firing."
The FBI, with no actual evidence of collusion after 10 months of investigating, began discussing a complete hypothetical at the
highest levels of leadership as a means to possibly open an obstruction-of-justice investigation of the president of the United States.
During his testimony, Baker told lawmakers: "I had a jaundiced eye about everything, yes. I had skepticism about all this stuff.
I was concerned about all of this. This whole situation was horrible, and it was novel and we were trying to figure out what to do,
and it was highly unusual."
McCabe was later fired for lying to the DOJ inspector general and is currently the subject of a criminal grand jury investigation.
The Fixer
Despite the ongoing assault from the intelligence community and holdovers from the Obama administration, Trump was not entirely
without allies.
Dana Boente, one of the nation's highest-profile federal prosecutors, served in a series of critical shifting roles within the
Trump administration. Boente, who remained the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia until early 2018, concurrently
became the acting attorney general following the firing of Sally Yates. Boente, who was specifically appointed by Trump, was not
directly in the line of succession that had been previously laid out under an unusual executive order from the Obama administration.
Upon the confirmation of Sessions as attorney general, Boente next served as acting deputy attorney general until the confirmation
of Rod Rosenstein as deputy attorney general on April 25, 2017. Boente then
became the acting head of the DOJ's National Security Division on April 28, 2017, following the sudden resignation of Mary McCord.
Boente was appointed as FBI general counsel on Jan. 23, 2018, replacing Baker, who was demoted and reassigned. Baker is currently
the subject of a criminal leak investigation. Boente remains in his position as FBI general counsel.
On March 31, 2017, the Trump administration asked for the resignations all 46 holdover U.S. attorneys from the Obama administration.
Trump refused to accept the resignations of just three of them -- Boente, Rosenstein, and John Huber.
As Sessions noted in a
March 29, 2018, letter
to congressional chairmen Chuck Grassley, Bob Goodlatte, and Trey Gowdy, Huber was assigned by Sessions to lead a prosecution
team and is currently working with DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz:
"I already have directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues previously raised by the Committee. Specifically,
I asked United States Attorney John W. Huber to lead this effort."
The Carter Page FISA application has been the subject of significant media attention, but there's another element to the story
that, although largely ignored, is equally important. It involved what amounted to a surreptitious race between then-NSA Director
Adm. Mike Rogers and DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin.
Following a March 9, 2016, discovery that outside contractors for the FBI had been accessing raw FISA data since at least 2015,
Rogers directed the NSA's Office of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702" at some
point in early April 2016 (
Senate testimony &
pages
83–84 of court ruling).
On April 18, 2016, Rogers moved aggressively in response to the disclosures. He abruptly shut down all FBI outside-contractor
access. At this point, both the FBI and the DOJ's NSD became aware of Rogers's compliance review. They may have known earlier, but
they were certainly aware after outside-contractor access was halted.
The DOJ's NSD maintains oversight of the intelligence agencies' use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director
of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies' Section 702 activities every 60 days. The NSD
-- with notice to the ODNI -- is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the FISA court.
Instead of issuing individual court orders, the attorney general and the director of national intelligence (DNI) are required
by Section
702 to provide the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) with annual certifications that specify categories of foreign
intelligence information the government is authorized to acquire, pursuant to Section 702.
The attorney general and the DNI also must certify that Intelligence Community agencies will follow targeting procedures and
minimization
procedures that are approved by the FISC as part of the certification.
Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of the compliance review by Rogers. The NSD
was part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the NSA inspector
general and associated FISA abuse to the FISA court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose Rogers's ongoing
Section 702-compliance review.
On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his
resignation , which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016.
On Oct. 4, 2016, a standard follow-up court hearing was held (
Page 19
), with Carlin present. Again, he made no disclosure of FISA abuse or other related issues. This lack of disclosure would be
noted by the court later in the April 2017 ruling:
"The government's failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing [was ascribed] to an institutional
'lack of candor.'"
On Oct. 15, 2016, Carlin formally left the NSD.
On Oct. 20, 2016, Rogers was briefed by the NSA compliance officer on findings from the 702 NSA compliance audit. The audit had
uncovered a large number of issues, including numerous "about query" violations (
Senate testimony ).
Rogers shut down all "about query" activity on Oct. 21, 2016. "About queries" are particularly worrisome, since they occur when
the target is neither the sender nor the recipient of the collected communication; rather, the target's "query," such as an email
address, is being passed between two other communicants.
On the same day, the DOJ and FBI sought and received a Title I FISA warrant on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. At this point,
the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of his findings:
"On October 24, 2016, the government orally apprised the Court of significant non-compliance with the NSA's minimization procedures
involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers. The full scope of non-compliant querying practices
had not been previously disclosed to the Court."
Rogers appeared formally before the FISA court on Oct. 26, 2016, and presented the written findings of his audit:
"Two days later, on the day the Court otherwise would have had to complete its review of the certifications and procedures, the government
made a written submission regarding those compliance problems and the Court held a hearing to address them.
"The government reported that the NSA IG and OCO were conducting other reviews covering different time periods, with preliminary
results suggesting that the problem was widespread during all periods under review."
The FISA court was unaware of the FISA "query" violations until they were presented to the court by then-NSA Director Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications, apparently in order to avoid raising
suspicions at the FISA court ahead of receiving the Carter Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page. FISA
Abuse & the FISC
Rogers presented his findings directly to the FISA court's presiding judge, Rosemary Collyer. Collyer and Rogers would work together
for the next six months, addressing the issues that Rogers had uncovered.
It was Collyer who wrote the
April 26, 2017,
FISA court ruling on the entire episode. It also was Collyer who signed the original FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21,
2016, before being apprised of the many issues by Rogers.
The litany of abuses described in the April 26, 2017, ruling was shocking and detailed the use of private contractors by the FBI
in relation to Section 702 data. Collyer referred to it as "a very serious Fourth Amendment issue." The FBI was specifically singled
out by the court numerous times in the ruling:
"The improper access previously afforded the contractors has been discontinued. The Court is nonetheless concerned about the FBI's
apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar disclosures of raw Section 702 information
that have not been reported."
Rogers informed Collyer of the ongoing FISA abuses by the FBI and NSD just three days after she personally signed the Carter Page
FISA warrant.
Virtually every FBI and NSD official with material involvement in the original Carter Page FISA application would later be removed
-- either through firing or resignation.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated the wrong month for Christopher Steele's 2016 meeting with the FBI in
Rome. The meeting took place in September 2016.
Former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko trace to Steele dossier is a real shocker.
Notable quotes:
"... On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled " WhosWho19Sept2016 ." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. ..."
"... If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI. ..."
"... What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr. ..."
"... FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble. ..."
"... It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from... ..."
"... So..the Timeline Indicates Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination.. ..."
"... I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos and Archey Declarations? ..."
"... So what did Barack Obama know, and when did he know it? ..."
"... Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for his impeachment. ..."
"... They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose. ..."
"... Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'??? ..."
"... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort. ..."
"... So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign influence in a U.S. election! ..."
"... The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest and law enforcement, became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good. ..."
There are many moving pieces in the drama surrounding the Deep State attempt to kill the Trump Presidency. God Bless Judicial
Watch. I think most of the key evidence that has surfaced came courtesy of Tom Fitton, Chris Farrell and their team of tireless workers.
I want to bring you back to
Mr. Felix Sater . He was part of Bayrock, which worked closely with Donald Trump's organization and, most importantly of all,
was an FBI Confidential Human Source since December of 1998.
Thanks to Judicial Watch we have a new dump of Bruce Ohr emails, which include several from his wife, Nellie. There are 330 pages
to wade thru (you can
see
them here ). There
is one item in particular I encourage you to look at:
On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled "
WhosWho19Sept2016
." The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and "linkages" between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures,
many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly "linked to Trump" include: a Russian involved in a "gangland
killing;" an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly "buys up banks
and pumps them dry"; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their
name to the Trump Institute, promoting its "get-rich-quick schemes"; a man who poured him a drink; and others.
The spreadsheet starts on page 301. If you search the document for the name Felix Sater, he will pop up. Now here is the curious
and, I suppose, reassuring thing about this document--Nellie Ohr did not have a clue that Felix Sater was an active FBI informant.
We can at least give the FBI credit for protecting Sater's identity from Nellie Ohr and, more importantly, her husband, DOJ official
Bruce Ohr.
If you want to have more fun, search the pdf using the term "BAYROCK." You will discover that Nellie Ohr, like a female Don
Quixote, is searching desperately to link Trump and Sater to dirty Russian money. What she does not suspect is that Sater was being
used, via his company Bayrock, to try to gain access to Russians who were potential targets of the FBI.
One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or one of the
other "suspects" she exhaustively listed.
Shifting gears, there are two very important pieces recently posted at The Conservative Tree House that I encourage you to read:
What is not emphasized in the piece, and it is something I want to direct you to, is that the idea or impetus to launch the
investigation of Butina came courtesy of Christopher Steele, who was relaying rumor and conjecture to Bruce Ohr.
You can find this information in the
Bruce
Ohr 302s that Judicial Watch also secured. Marina Butina was unfairly and unjustly portrayed and prosecuted as a Russian intelligence
agent. It was a damn lie.
I do not ever want to hear another American complaining about an American State Department or CIA employee who is entrapped and
unfairly prosecuted in Russia.
We have done the same damn thing that we have accused the Soviets of doing. The same thing. It is shameful.
The
second piece is the ultimate feel good piece. Kudos to its author, Sundance.
He details how a Federal Judge, infuriated by the FBIs stupidity and mendacity, tells the Bureau to go pound sand. The FBI is
frantically trying to prevent the Archey Declarations from being revealed thanks to a lawsuit brought by CNN (finally, CNN did something
right).
The Archey Declarations provide a detailed description of the memos written and illegally removed from FBI Headquarters by that
sanctimonious twit, Jim Comey. More shoes will be dropping in the coming days.
It appears that Inspector General Horowitz is going to present at least one report on Jim Comey and one report on the FISA abuse
by the FBI.
FBI Director Christopher Wray reminds me of one of the workers in the bowels of the Titanic who was furiously shoveling coal
into the doomed boilers of the sinking ship. The FBI, like the Titanic, is in trouble.
Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today (
see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June 20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal
with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's team the right to destroy computers and emails.
It also gave immunity to all of the people on Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day,
Jim Comey signed off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton.
The fix was in more than a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending prosecution
of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server.
Jim Comey lied when he declared that could not prove "intent."
I am sure that those of you who have never held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie.
But anyone who knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS material on an unclassified
server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this mistakenly.
Jim Ticehurst said in reply to Jim Ticehurst... ,
Larry..Fusion GPS has always refused to Reveal who where its Financial support came from...
So..the Timeline Indicates
Fusion GPS was hired by The "Washington Free Beacon" around October 2015 to background checks and Profiles of The Republican Candidates
for President.and that Fusion GPS continued to do so until May 2016..when it became clear that Donald Trump clinched the Nomination..
creating Phase 2..Operations..
"The Washington Free Beacon ".Has an Editor in Chief ..who is William Kristols Son In Law..And William Kristols ..Father....Irving
Kristol..is Called..."the God Father of Neo Conservatism". William Kristol..was a John McCain supporter..
Thus Fusion GPS..retained Nellie Ohr..(strangly..NO Wiki Profile) who apparently had to Use her husbnd Bruce Ohrs Clearances,,to
continue Her Collaberation with Fusion GPS..
By June 2016 the Strategy was to bring in Christopher Steele..who was know to Bruce Ohr back to 2006.. Strange.. NO early life
BIOS for Bruce or Nellie Ohr..
I wonder why AG Barr isn't forcing the FBI to comply sooner with Judge Boasberg's ruling to hand over unredacted Comey Memos
and Archey Declarations?
The Gateway Pundit item about the ridiculously unfair and unethical deals made in Hillary Clinton's email scandal investigation
is just further proof of how the Clinton taint infected the FBI. "Crooked" is a very apt epithet, that's for sure. I'd love to
know how much Bill and Hill raked in during her Sec'y. of State racketeering.
You say: "One point is clear--she uncovered no evidence implicating Trump working with the Russians, either thru Felix Sater or
one of the other "suspects" she exhaustively listed."
This is true, but it is also true that Nellie Ohr was working for a privately-owned firm that had employed her to make
false accusations about Trump's alleged connections to Russians in order to sabotage his presidency and lay the groundwork for
his impeachment.
They also hired foreign agent, Chris Steele to concoct a thoroughly-debunked dossier for the same purpose.
Can these people be charged with a crime or have we entered a new world of 'dirty tricks'???
... Examination of the Nellie Ohr documents given to the FBI shows some of her source material also came from former Ukrainian
presidential candidate Yulia Tymoshenko and a lawsuit she filed against Manafort.
Why is that significant? Tymoshenko and Hillary Clinton had a simpatico relationship after the former secretary of State
went out of her way in January 2013 to advocate for Tymoshenko's release from prison on corruption charges.
So, Bruce Ohr became a conduit of information not only for intelligence from Clinton's British opposition-researcher
but also from his wife's curation of evidence from a Clinton foreign ally and Manafort enemy inside Ukraine. Talk about foreign
influence in a U.S. election!
...
The tales of Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Christopher Steele, Yulia Tymoshenko, and those DEA and TSA agents raise a stark warning:
The lines between government officials and informants, unverified political dirt and real intelligence, personal interest
and law enforcement,
became too blurred for the Justice Department's own good.
The person responsible for securing the release of Yulia Tymoshenko was Chancellor Merkel. Further, that USA opposed Tymoshenko.
quote
As for one of the leaders of the war party in Kiev, Merkel has privately and publicly endorsed every claim of Yulia Tymoshenko,
promoting her release from prison and protecting her campaigns for war against Russia, even though – according to the high-level
German source – “they [Chancellery, Foreign Ministry] have known for years that [Tymoshenko] was a crook.”
endquote
There is a lot more detail Tymoshenko's corruption and Merkel's rescue here:
Finally, Gateway Pundit's Joe Hoft put up an important piece today (
see here ). Here is the bottomline, and keep this in mind as you read the piece, on June
20, 2016 the FBI signed off on a deal with Hillary Clinton's attorney's that gave Hillary's
team the right to destroy computers and emails. It also gave immunity to all of the people on
Hillary's team that participated in obstruction of justice. On that same day, Jim Comey signed
off on a separate memo that decided not to prosecute Hillary Clinton. The fix was in more than
a month before Jim Comey appeared on camera to try to explain why he was not recommending
prosecution of Hillary for putting Top Secret information on her unclassified server. Jim Comey
lied when he declared that could not prove "intent." I am sure that those of you who have never
held a clearance and handled Top Secret material probably believed that lie. But anyone who
knows how the TS system is set up knows that the ONLY WAY, I repeat, the ONLY WAY to put TS
material on an unclassified server is to do so intentionally. There is no way to do this
mistakenly.
The testimony of Robert Mueller should have marked the end of a national nightmare.
Instead, a new legend was born
This myth died on television .
Mueller on the stand was a potted plant. Reporters saw Moses and Jesus. If you need
evidence we're in a religious mania, look no further. This was a pure exercise in restoring
an idol for worship
In mid-March, just before Mueller's probe wrapped up, CNN found a whopping zero percent
of Americans identified "Russian investigation" as their primary concern heading into 2020.
The network wrote (emphasis mine):..,
ussiagate should be dead. Instead, it's gaining new life, with impeachment looking like
the New Testament phase of the religion
####
Every time I read a piece by Matt Taibbi, I ask myself, "Why don't you read Matt Taibbi more
often?" By God, he can write – I nearly horked up a lung when he described John Brennan
as a 'paranoid outpatient'. His descriptions of the frantic dissembling amongst the Democrats
create passages in which you can actually smell the despair and incoherent rage, like burnt
hair.
The whole Mueller testimonial dirge will turn out to have only divided Americans further.
Republicans will chuckle with satisfaction at watching Mueller fly into a window like a
careless jackdaw, while Democrats will sense that something crazy happened but that this is a
time for blind loyalty. And never the twain shall meet. The fact that that was supposed to be
East and West makes the irony but more pronounced.
Former FBI Director James Comey will avoid prosecution after illegally leaking personal memos in the hopes of instigating the
special counsel's investigation into the 2016 US election, as reported yesterday by
The Hill 's John Solomon and confirmed today by
Fox News .
According to Solomon, DOJ Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz referred Comey for possible prosecution under laws governing
the handling of classified information, however Attorney General William Barr has declined to prosecute - as the DOJ does not believe
they have enough evidence of Comey's intent to violate the law.
"Everyone at the DOJ involved in the decision said it wasn't a close call," an official told Fox News . "They all thought this
could not be prosecuted."
That said, it's important to note that this decision was the result of a 'carve-out' investigation separate of the IG probe on
FISA abuse .
This is NOT the Inspector General Michael Horowitz report on DOJ and FBI FISA abuse.
This is a carve-out.
...
From the outset it was reported and confirmed that U.S. Attorney John Huber was assigned to assist Inspector General Michael
Horowitz. Huber's job was to stand-by in case the IG carved out a particular concern, discovered during his investigation, that
might involve criminal conduct.
Earlier this week
Matt Whitaker said : "John Huber is reviewing anything related to Comey's memos and the like. "
Put the two data points together and what you realize is that during the OIG review of potential DOJ and FBI FISA abuse IG
Horowitz investigated the Comey Memo's and then passed that specific issue along to John Huber for DOJ review.
The IG criminal referral for the James Comey memo leaking was a carve-out sent to U.S. Attorney John Huber.
...
This is not the inspector general report on DOJ and FBI FISA abuse. This is an IG report carved out of the larger investigation.
-
Conservative Treehouse
In short, we will first see an IG report just covering Comey, with a more comprehensive report to follow on FISA abuse. _arrow
1
chunga , 2 minutes ago
Every day this gets a little more humiliating.
libertysghost , 2 minutes ago
So it has to be proven that the head of the FBI knew what the frikin laws were that he was violating?
Knowing the laws were not in his job description?
Aside from that not being a standard for determining prosecution for anyone else aside from Deep Staters, the claim is laughable
on its face. Did Comey's office (or Comey himself) ever provide evidence for the prosecution of ANY individual for ANYTHING where
they argued "intent" didn't matter? I'm 100% sure he did. So why is this hard to point out in showing that "intent" doesn't matter?
FFS...this is a scam. I was leery as soon as Trump handing over declassification to Barr. We will know who is involved in the
cover up by their response to this...in particular those claiming to be at the front lines of demanding consequences for the spying/coup.
Bavarian , 3 minutes ago
This was always small potatoes. FISA and the involvement in setting up the coup will involve the meat of his convictions anyway.
Anyone thinking he's walking isn't paying attention.
I am Groot , 5 minutes ago
Comey: Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to help throw a coup.
Barr: Ok, no problem, we won't charge you. We know it was just an accident. You're all good. You can go on CNN and rub everybody's
nose in it now
Real Estate Guru , 14 minutes ago
What makes you think that Comey didn't cut a deal with Barr to get the others, folks? Stay tuned!
You do the math.
I am Groot , 12 minutes ago
WHY THE **** WOULD BARR CUT A DEAL WITH ANY OF THOSE TREASONOUS ***** !
THEY ARE ALL GUILTY AS HELL ! ! !
Real Estate Guru , 11 minutes ago
I agree. But this fool might be naming Obama for all we know. That would be worth it, or Hillary.
Either way, he is going down on the FISA warrants. He signed off on them.
I am Groot , 8 minutes ago
Obama is fucked six ways to Sunday. They have the FBI text messages that prove he was directing all of this and was neck deep
in it.
spyware-free , 12 minutes ago
Then why not state that as the reason? There is enough evidence to prosecute. They could have at the least waited and added
the charge to future indictments instead of dismissing right away.
buckboy , 13 minutes ago
Prosecuting Comey by DOJ risks DOJ involvement and alike................just too many to protect.
TruthAbsolute , 13 minutes ago
haha the USA has a two tier justice system...You poor sick Patriots!
libertysghost , 21 minutes ago
Comey will walk and Trump will be impeached for "obstructing" an investigation into a non-existent crime, because he tried
to defend himself against the coup proclaiming his innocents.
If this happens...
Cabreado , 22 minutes ago
Maintaining some sense of optimism just got a little harder...
enough of this , 23 minutes ago
All those dire pronouncements by conservative pundits that Comey would be nailed for taking classified information home from
his office and releasing it to his friend, who in turn leaked it to the press was all ********. It turns out Comey could do it
with impunity and he knew he would skate because his deep-state pals at the DOJ would never indict him for doing so. Rigged justice
system = Rigged outcome.
SRV , 25 minutes ago
Flynn is facing 5 years for a clear FBI trap, after spying on everything he said in the WH... not a good start for Barr...
and if he's a plant, it's over.
Real Estate Guru , 20 minutes ago
Flynn is a Patriot. He is not going down. He has not even been sent anywhere. Relax. if they had him, he would be in jail by
now. He is like the invisible russians that Mueller convicted of nothing. They showed up by the way, and wanted to see the evidence...Mueller
just blew them off. Mueller is a shill for Weissmann, he is clueless, feeble, and doesnt know one damn thing. No sentencing of
anybody. Flynn is a hero, not a criminal. That tells you everything you need to know.
Real Estate Guru , 27 minutes ago
They have something far larger than this, and they don't want to lose the first case on him. Don't worry, the stuff that is
coming out on this guy will easily convict him within weeks. It will involve the FISA warrants.
- Hannity, Soloman
Stay tuned...much more to come Patriots!
LookAtMeme.com , 14 minutes ago
Who said that they have to charge Comey piecemeal starting with smaller charges and therefore it's best to let him skate on
those smaller charges? Prosecutors regularly load up charges against defendants.
RagaMuffin , 28 minutes ago
Unless he can be nailed on a larger charge, this is how the Swamp protects its own, particularly since intent is not the basis
of whether the law was broken?
Roger Rabbit , 23 minutes ago
He IS going to be nailed on a much bigger charge: FISA abuse. It's already well established he lied to the FISA court. Too
bad they are all Jesuit graduates though, hence why they've taken no corrective action, and never objected to what was obviously
FISA fraud.
LookAtMeme.com , 16 minutes ago
It's already well established by Comey's own congressional testimony that he purposely leaked FBI documents in order to prompt
an investigation of the President.
LookAtMeme.com , 5 minutes ago
If they intend to prosecute Comey for other crimes later then they don't have to "waste time" exonerating him now. They can
throw the entire ball of wax at him at a later date. The man admitted to congress that he leaked FBI documents in order to prompt
an investigation of the President. We all know this.
Ergo I.C. , 31 minutes ago
"... however Attorney General William Barr has declined to prosecute - as the DOJ does not believe they have enough evidence
of Comey's intent to violate the law."
WTH! FBI agents went to Comey's house a month after he was fired to pick up documents he was not suppose to have. Not enough
evidence to show intent my ***!
"... That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows. ..."
"... *CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating Inside the U.S. ..."
"... That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is highly probable. ..."
"... For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that, for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties. ..."
"... Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects. ..."
"... Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands. There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told. ..."
"... As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over." ..."
"... The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death. ..."
"... Boy that Mueller has had a busy career hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he did or didn't do. ..."
"... Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone. ..."
"... In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and to the corridors of power throughout Europe. ..."
"... Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something on them? ..."
"... Epstein is the destruction of the Deep State. ..."
"... That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one. ..."
"... The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution ring. ..."
"... Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103 bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation. ..."
"... The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being sued by his lead investigator in that case. ..."
"... Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite, the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the hip ..."
"... partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world. ..."
"... The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union, along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services. ..."
"... The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities run by the two main communications intelligence agencies. ..."
"... Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS. ..."
"... Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then, three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations. ..."
"... For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief, to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized. ..."
"... Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations. ..."
"... Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree. ..."
"... There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars." ..."
That was while Robert Mueller ran the Bureau, which means everything about Epstein's blackmail and kompromat operation
has been tucked safely away out of sight in FBI files for at least a decade. Much longer, new evidence shows.
The real question is, why did the FBI wait for more than a decade to bust Epstein and Maxwell?
Epstein and Maxwell came to the attention of the FBI in 1996, when, curiously, the Bureau never acted on an accusation that
they had together sexually abused a 15 year old girl in a bedroom inside Epstein's Manhattan townhouse. Documents in a recent
law suit filed by an alleged victim, Maria Farmer, show that the FBI had been aware of Epstein and Maxwell's child abuse activities
in New York for at least a dozen years before Epstein was finally charged in 2008 with much-reduced Florida state offenses.
https://www.yourtango.com/2019323698/who-maria-farmer-latest-woman-accus...
Farmer claims she reported her sexual assault to New York police and the FBI in 1996. "To my knowledge, I was the first
person to report Maxwell and Epstein to the FBI," she wrote in her affidavit."
*CIA Acknowledged in 2003, It Knew that Ghislaine Maxwell's Late Father was a Major Foreign Intelligence Agent Operating
Inside the U.S.
Previously, Robert Maxwell, Ghislaine's father, had for many years been known to have been involved in high-level espionage
in the United States, as detailed in a 2003 publication of the CIA Center for the Study of Intelligence, The Intelligence Officer's
Bookshelf . Therein, the CIA reviewer of a biography by British author Gordon Thomas acknowledged about Maxwell:
https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-pub...
That Robert Maxwell was a ruthless, corrupt, tax-dodging international businessman who served as an Israeli agent is
highly probable.
For the deeper background to the Epstein-Maxwell multinational blackmail, coverup and kompromat operation, we have to
look at the events that led up to the 1991 death of Robert Maxwell. A summary of the Maxwell bio by its authors recounts:
British Publisher Robert Maxwell
Was Mossad Spy
By Gordon Thomas And Martin Dillon
The Mirror - UK
12-6-2002
[ . . .]
Eleven years after former Daily Mirror owner Robert Maxwell plunged from his luxury yacht to a watery grave, his death still
arouses intense interest.
Many different theories have circulated about what really happened on board the Lady Ghislaine that night in May 1991.
[ . . . ]
The Jewish millionaire and former Labour MP [born Ludvik Hoch
in Czechoslovakia] died the way he had lived - threatening.
He had threatened his wife. Threatened his children. Threatened the staff of this newspaper.
But finally he issued one threat too many - he threatened Mossad.
He told them that unless they gave him £400million to save his crumbling empire, he would expose all he had done for them.
In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin and
to the corridors of power throughout Europe.
On top of that he had built himself a position of power within the crime families of eastern Europe, teaching them how to
funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around the globe.
Maxwell passed on all the secrets he learned to Mossad in Tel Aviv. In turn, they tolerated his excesses, vanities and insatiable
appetite for a luxurious lifestyle and women.
He told his controllers who they should target and how they should do it. He appointed himself as Israel's unofficial ambassador
to the Soviet Bloc. Mossad saw the advantage in that.
[ . . . ]
The more successful Maxwell became the more risks he took and the more dangerous he was to Mossad. At the same time, the
very public side of Maxwell, who then owned 400 companies, began to unwind.
He spent lavishly and lost money on deals. The more he lost, the more he tried to claw money from the banks. Then he saw
a way out of his problems.
He was approached by Vladimir Kryuchkov, head of the KGB. Spymaster and tycoon met in the utmost secrecy in the Kremlin.
Kryuchkov had an extraordinary proposal. He wanted Maxwell to help orchestrate the overthrow of Mikhail Gorbachev, the reformist
Soviet leader. That would bring to an end a fledgling democracy and a return to the Cold War days.
In return, Maxwell's massive debts would be wiped out by a grateful Kryuchkov, who planned to replace Gorbachev. The KGB
chief wanted Maxwell to use the Lady Ghislaine, named after Maxwell's daughter, as a meeting place between the Russian plotters,
Mossad chiefs and Israel's top politicians.
The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better
to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control. In return, Kryuchkov would
guarantee to free hundreds of thousands of Jews and dissidents in the Soviet republics.
Kryuchkov told Maxwell that he would be seen as a saviour of all those Jews. It was a proposal he could not refuse. But
when he put it to his Mossad controllers they were horrified. They said Israel would have no part in such a madcap plan.
For the first time, Maxwell had failed to get his own way. He started to threaten and bluster. He then demanded that,
for past services, he should receive immediately a quick fix of £400million to bale him out of his financial difficulties.
Instead of providing the money, a small group of Mossad officers set about planning his murder. They feared that he
was going to publicly expose all Mossad had done in the time he worked for them. They knew that he was gradually becoming mentally
unstable and paranoid. He was taking a cocktail of drugs - Halcion and Zanax - which had serious side effects.
The group of Mossad plotters sensed, like Solomon, he could bring their temple tumbling down and cause incalculable harm
to Israel. The plan to kill him was prepared in the utmost secrecy. A four-man squad was briefed.
Then Maxwell was contacted. He was told to fly to Gibraltar, go aboard the Lady Ghislaine and sail to the Canary Islands.
There at sea he would receive his £400million quick fix in the form of a banker's draft. Maxwell did as he was told.
On the night of November 4, 1991, the Lady Ghislaine, one of the world's biggest yachts, was at sea.
[ . . . ]
As Victor Ostrovsky, a former Mossad agent told us: "On that cold night Mossad's problems with Robert Maxwell were over."
The incontrovertible facts about his murder are contained in a previously-unseen autopsy report by Britain's then-leading
forensic pathologist Dr Iain West and Israel State Pathologist Dr Yehuda Hiss. Of all the documents in our possession, these
reports confirm the truth about Maxwell's death.
Gordon Thomas & Martin Dillon are authors of The Assassination of Robert Maxwell: Israel's Super Spy, published by Robson
Books.
The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked. The
answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its several
operators to let it all end too soon.
leap out at me as suggesting how Epstein connects to much bigger subjects. First is the assertion that Maxwell was
... teaching them how to funnel their vast wealth from drugs, arms smuggling and prostitution to banks in safe havens around
the globe.
This area of trafficking and money laundering directly connects to Mueller and his essential exoneration of
HSBC .
The other quotation that suggests the importance of money laundering is here:
The plan was for the Israelis to go to Washington and say that democracy could not work in Russia and that it was better
to allow the country to return to a modified form of communism, which America could help to control.
The life's work of
Antony Sutton at Stanford's Hoover Institution shows that American industry was ALWAYS controlling communism as well as Soviet
industrial development, and that a trend toward social democracy, represented by Gorbachev, would have put an end to that control.
@Linda Wood his money laundering and blackmailing activities. While the review confirms that Robert Maxwell was for decades
a major Mossad agent actively setting up operations and cover in the United States and the UK, I can only surmise that the spreading
political influence of Eastern European organized crime networks and child honey traps are things that the Agency didn't want
to discuss publicly in 2003.
As for Mueller, let's not forget that he was FBI Director and before that the head of the Criminal Division at Main Justice
at the time that global "black finance" grew along with the catastrophic spread of multinational crime and terrorism. BCCI, Iran-Contra,
9/11, and the rise of transnational Oligarchs happened on his watch. As the Chief Law Enforcement Officer in the United States
at the time, it is hard to imagine anyone more responsibility for the ultimate consequences than Robert Mueller. There is perhaps
someone who bears ultimate responsibility, the President who appointed Mueller: George Herbert Walker Bush and his lesser son,
Shrub, who promoted him.
... wouldn't you assume that this entire affair is an ongoing Mossad operation, which may or may not have concluded? The US
IC is just another operative inside the envelope, but Mossad owns the assets and the intellectual property. I think we could assume
that some of this is automated and Mossad has ongoing leverage still in play.
The obvious question, why did the U.S. government let these intelligence crimes continue for decades, isn't being asked.
The answer is almost self-evident. Information and leverage obtained by Maxwell-Epstein and Co. was far too valuable to its
several operators to let it all end too soon.
.
Mossad's legendary blackmail traps ensnared even high-level deep state authorities and made them pliable. The recent history
of United States foreign policy is an enigma that can only be solved when that assumption is inserted. Once the assumption is
in place, it opens like a Pandora's box. Don't you find that to be the case?
In a recent investigation I presented the case that British banking and financial giant HSBC conspired with banking institutions
with documented links to terrorist financing, including those responsible for helping bankroll the 9/11 attacks.
SUNDAY, JULY 29, 2012
Black Dossier: HSBC & Terrorist Finance
Moral equivalencies abound. After all, when American secret state agencies manage drug flows or direct terrorist proxies
to attack official enemies it's not quite the same as battling terror or crime.
Pounding home that point, a new report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations accused HSBC of exposing "the
U.S. financial system to a wide array of money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing risks due to poor anti-money
laundering (AML) controls."
That 335-page report, "U.S. Vulnerabilities to Money Laundering, Drugs, and Terrorist Financing: HSBC Case History," (large
pdf file available
here ) was issued after a year-long Senate investigation zeroed-in on the bank's U.S. affiliate, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., better
known as HBUS.
Drilling down, we learned that amongst the "services" offered by HSBC subsidiaries and correspondent banks were sweet deals
with financial entities with terrorist ties; the transportation of billions of dollars in cash by plane and armored car through
their London Banknotes division; the clearing of sequentially-numbered travelers checks through dodgy Cayman Islands accounts
for Mexican drug lords and Russian mafiosi.
From richly-appointed suites at Canary Wharf, London, the bank's "smartest guys in the room" handed some of the most violent
gangsters on earth the financial wherewithal to organize their respective industries: global crime.
A case in point. In 2008 alone the Senate revealed that the bank's Cayman Islands branch handled some 50,000 client accounts
(all without benefit of offices or staff on Grand Cayman, mind you), yet still managed to ship some $7 billion (£10.9bn) in
cash from Mexico into the U.S. Now that's creative accounting!...
@Linda Wood HSBC, huh--there must be some clever name for it, which deserves no research.
what an eloquent article you presented. Brief but right on target. It isn't just sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now it is drugs
- money -sexual perversion--and perhaps worse? Rumors are flying about what video on the Weiner laptop showed. It is strictly
heresay, but a core of folks seem to believe the suspicions are possible.
snoopydawg on Thu, 07/11/2019 - 8:48pm
Boy that Mueller has had a busy career
hasn't he? Didn't he start out in Chicago where he gave Whitey Bulgar cover for being a mob boss? Then there's his
cover up before and after 9/11. The weapons of mass destruction that he said Saddam had. The anthrax prosecution, Epstein's pedophilia
cover up, HSBC and now he is trying to cover Hillary's buttocks. And maybe Obama's? I'm sure I've missed a few things that he
did or didn't do.
Acosta is saying that if he hadn't made the plea deal then Epstein would never have served any time in
prison. Well he actually only slept there since he got to leave every day for work and then there's the massages he got after
his busy day at work. But there were more than 80 pages that the Feds wrote on his escapades so I think that story he told congress
is true. Acosta was told to stand down by someone at the top of the food chain. Mueller. Ugh what a slimy piece of work he
is. But not to the Russia Gaters. Oh no. "He is a highly decorated marine who takes no guff from anyone.
In that time, he had free access to Margaret Thatcher's Downing Street, to Ronald Reagan's White House, to the Kremlin
and to the corridors of power throughout Europe.
Inquiring minds want to know did Maxwell have access to Margaret and Ron because they liked him or because he had something
on them?
Great information! The more I learn the more I need a shower.
is how I've been feeling all week from reading about this, just more and more demoralized when I think about the depravation
of our so-called "leadership." What is it that we're supposed to think of as the new normal after this behavior?
That pedophelia and politics scandal, better known as the Franklin Coverup, made the papers for a few months, too, before
it was made to go away. Similarly, a couple of the operators served some time on reduced charges after that one.
The two main suspects in the Bush, Sr. White House child ring were Craig Spence and Lawrence E. King Jr. King sang the
National anthem at two GOP national conventions. He served time in jail for bank fraud. Spence was a Republican lobbyist before
he committed suicide. Several of his partners went to jail for being involved in the adult part of the homosexual prostitution
ring.
Mueller's scrupulous avoidance of the CIA link in his prosecution of Manuel Noriega and his diversion of the PanAm 103
bombing and framing of two Libyans. Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.
Bobby Mueller has been a real go to guy when the security establishment needs a phony investigation.
The anthrax investigation is the most serious of his crimes. Mueller is being
sued by his lead investigator in that case.
Because researchers in our biological weapons labs went public with what they were doing, and where such research was being
done in the U.S., we learned the CIA was one of several outfits doing biological weapons research.
But Mueller exonerated all of them, including the CIA, with no explanation and only focused on a lone vaccine researcher at
the Army lab when journalists began to ask why no one had been indicted after seven years of investigation, at which point the
FBI attempted to harass the suspect into committing suicide.
Every now and then, here and there the curtain lifts for a moment and the political elite of a country, the business elite,
the spy services, the military, and organized crime are revealed to be all working together, indeed practically joined at the
hip.
partnership started during the early Cold War with US intelligence officers facilitating the drug trade out of Turkey and
Burma through Europe. That soon spread to the Americas and globally. Covert operations such as Gladio, Condor, and the Safari
Club, and associated banks (Franklin National Bank, BCCI, Riggs Bank, HSBC, etc.) produced massive human rights violations, transnational
terrorism and governmental corruption. The CIA's secret wars provided funds and official cover for private-public sector alliance
of criminals, bankers and spooks around the world.
This "dark alliance" assumed a political and economic life of its own beyond its original intent to counter communist movements.
By the Vietnam War, Agency operators were running most of the heroin trade in the world through proprietary airlines, banks and
logistics companies. In the mid-1970s, CIA Director Bush expanded privatization with Saudi funding in his Safari Club deal that
eventually morphed into Al Qaeda and ISIS.
The CIA, MI6 and Mossad ran overlapping coordinated operations using privateers, paramilitaries and organized crime networks
that consumed vast amounts of cash generated by money laundering mechanisms. Enriched by the looting of the former Soviet Union,
along with the infusion of Arab oil money (the Saudi Yamamah slush fund), the "Octopus" became the instrument of Oligarchs
that have thoroughly corrupted western governments and secret services.
Multinational honey trap operations such as Maxwell-Epstein & Co. are an inevitable and continuing part of this privatization
and criminalization of intelligence that stretches back to the days of Tom Braden and Cord Meyer handing out stacks of greenbacks
to Mafiosi on the Corsican Docks.
The Snowden release included a number of documents that illustrate the on-line entrapment and political disruption activities
run by the two main communications intelligence agencies.
"Honey-trap; a great option. Very successful, when it works" (GCHQ, UK training program slide)
Without quoting the whole thing (which is worth a read):
Epstein recruits young girls, throws parties where he invites potential hedge fund clients, lets nature take its course
and films the proceedings, extracts blackmail in the form of investments to his (largely fake) hedge fund, which actually just
buys an index fund (no actual fund management required). He takes a percentage from the coerced investments. Nobody talks because
they have too much to lose. No suspicious payments to raise eyebrows at the IRS.
There's no need to invoke the Mafia/Russia/Mossad/CIA/etc, that's just needlessly overfitting.
Except such an operation would be quite attractive to intelligence services. Maybe they were in on the ground floor, maybe
they made Epstein an offer he couldn't refuse once they heard about it.
Epstein brought in the clients. The CIA/MI-6/Mossad provided necessary cover from the FBI and local cops - then,
three or four agencies shared the intelligence take, as they had for decades from Robert Maxwell's operations.
For Ghislaine, it was simply carrying on the family business for fun and profit. For the spooks, it was business as usual
going back to the Green House, the Berlin bordello founded in the the 1870s by Wilhelm Steiber, a Prussian Police section chief,
to provide useful intelligence to Bismarck's Military Intelligence, which he reorganized.
Steiber is considered the father of modern espionage. His methods were vastly influential, and he attracted students from London,
St. Petersburg to Tokyo. Each put their own national spin on the science of sexual blackmail. As for the Japanese, they are among
the most interesting and innovative in their use of a parallel network of privatized intelligence services incorporating underworld
Yakuzi groups alongside conventional military intelligence units. Using compromise, they gained and maintained control over Imperial
Japan and its Colonies: https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2019/03/15/eastern-peril/
To realize these divinely inspired ambitions, Japan needed a modern espionage system. Adopting the German model, Japanese
officials were sent to study under Wilhelm Stieber in the mid-1870s. Over the next decade Japan built up separate army and
naval intelligence services, each with an accompanying branch of secret military police (Kempeitai for the army and Tokeitai
for the navy). These latter organizations also provided an excellent counter-espionage service. However, where the Japanese
were unique was in the use of spies belonging to unofficial secret societies working alongside or independently of the official
intelligence agencies. These shadowy institutions were ultra-nationalist by nature, drawing their membership from a cross-section
of Japanese society, including the military, politics, industry and Yakuza underworld. Under ruthless leadership, their henchmen
would spy on, subvert and corrupt Japan's Far East neighbours.
For more on Steiber and his superior, von Hinckeldey, methods of international counter-insurgency, espionage, and political
policing included deception and a forerunner of today's internet surveillance:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2006/11/29/275653/-
While armies are essential to the maintenance of autocracy, the preservation of dynastic rule and the prevention of democracy
requires an effective secret police. The suppression of its middle-class constitutionalists [during the 1840s] was followed
by the expansion of the Prussian political police under Karl Ludwig Friedrich von Hinckeldey.
Appointed police president of Berlin in late 1848, Hinckeldey was an innovator of many of the features of modern systematic
political policing. Among the tactics that he introduced with his new police system in Berlin was the "Litfass columns". Named
for Ernst Litfass, Frederick William's court printer, he had dozens of these large poles erected in strategic spots around
Berlin. The public posting of political notices was then banned. By application to a state office for a waiver, however, the
columns could be used to display messages. The police dutifully recorded the names of all who had applied. A. Richie, Faust's
Metropolis: A History of Berlin, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1998 at p.134.
LEGACY OF THE LITFASS COLUMNS: A similar ploy was later adopted by the People's Republic of China. In the mid-1980s, the
Communist authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing
could post political writings, initially, without being arrested. Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities
in other Chinese cities. For this apparent opening to democracy, the Deng regime much applauded, particularly by some in the
Reagan-Bush Administration, eager to legitimize the regime and its growing commercial ties with U.S. corporations. Eventually,
many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of
hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters that followed the Tienamen Square massacre. The impression of anonymity and "freedom"
conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police to cast a wide net for identifying persons and
organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in the future.
Hinckeldey also founded the Police Union, the first recorded international network of counterrevolutionary police spies
in modern times. Primarily made up of police officers from Prussia and the German states, the Union operated throughout Europe,
Britain and in the United States. The Union was run by his deputy, the notorious police provocateur, Wilhelm Steiber, who would
later reorganize the Okhrana along similar lines. Internationally active from 1851-1866, the Police Union, according to Mathieu
Deflem, was "one of the first formal initiatives in industrial society to establish an organized police system across national
borders."13
I disagree with the Alternet view on this. See, this is the norm. A purely private sexual blackmail ring of any scale would
be the historical exception. It certainly wouldn't survive very long.
...authorities at first appear to tolerate the operation of a so-called Democracy Wall, where "dissidents" in Beijing could
post political writings.... Similar walls then sprung up under the noses of the authorities in other Chinese cities. Eventually,
many of those who had availed themselves of the wall to post political messages were, of course, arrested in the roundup of
hundreds of thousands of democracy supporters....
The impression of anonymity and "freedom" conveyed by the Internet, of course, presents a similar opportunity for police
to cast a wide net for identifying persons and organizations who may not hold favor for the regime in power, or may not in
the future.
But why should one avoid the thought? If the situation looks like the people are going to lose the war for their minds, and
are unwilling to back a publisher like Assange who has given his all to try to empower them, why should anyone put themselves
at risk by expressing their opinions? It's a honeypot of our own making, just as Facebook is where people go to write their own
dossiers for the Authorities.
@Pluto's Republic an enemy of the status quo, you raise the calculated costs of the eventual crackdown, pushing back the
day of reckoning. Keep it up! Visible rebellion is the only defense of the people.
...from which to leverage access to the elite, Harvard University would be a top choice.
Jeffery Epstein actually entered the social salons of the elite through many doors. He was, of course, a member of the Council
on Foreign Relations. One would have to be to rub shoulders with the political elite. From there he matriculated to the Trilateral
Commission becoming friendly with Harvard President, Larry Summers. **
Becoming a surprise mystery philanthropist at Harvard, with Summers help, was a booster rocket for Epstein. In the Havard Crimson , in
June 2003, Epstein's involvement with Harvard was celebrated.
People in the News: Jeffrey E. Epstein
Elusive financier Jeffrey E. Epstein donated $30 million this year to Harvard for the founding of a mathematical biology
and evolutionary dynamics program.
While the mathematics teacher turned magnate remained unknown to most people until he flew President Clinton, Kevin
Spacey and Chris Tucker to Africa to explore the problems of AIDS and economic development facing the region, Epstein
has been a familiar face to many at Harvard for years.
Networking with the University's leading intellectuals, Epstein has spurred research through both discussions with and dollars
contributed to various faculty members.
Lindsley Professor of Psychology Stephen M. Kosslyn, former Dean of the Faculty Henry A. Rosovsky and Frankfurter Professor
of Law Alan M. Dershowitz are among Epstein's bevy of eminent friends that includes princes, presidents and Nobel
Prize winners.
Epstein is also well acquainted with University President Lawrence H. Summers. The two serve together on the Trilateral
Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, two elite international relations organizations.
Epstein's collection of high-profile friends also includes newly-recruited professor Martin A. Nowak, who will run Harvard's
mathematical biology and evolutionary dynamics program.
Like Kosslyn, Rosovsky and Dershowitz, Nowak praises Epstein's numerous relationships within the scientific community.
"I am amazed by the connections he has in the scientific world," Nowak says. "He knows an amazing number of scientists.
He knows everyone you can imagine."
Epstein's relationships within the academy are remarkable since the tycoon, who has amassed his fortune by managing
the wealth of billionaires from his private Caribbean island, does not hold a bachelor's degree.
Yet, friends and beneficiaries say they do not see Epstein merely as a man with deep pockets, but as an intellectual equal.
Dershowitz says Epstein is "brilliant" and Kosslyn calls Epstein "one of the brightest people I've ever known."
Epstein's beneficiaries say they are particularly appreciative of the no-strings-attached approach Epstein takes with his
donations.
"He is one of the most pleasant philanthropists," Nowak says. "Unlike many people who support science, he supports science
without any conditions. There are not any disadvantages to associating with him."
Friends and associates say Harvard stands to benefit from its evolving relationship with Epstein.
"I hope that he will, over time, become one of the leading supporters of science at Harvard," Rosovsky writes in an e-mail.
__________________________________________
** A footnote on Larry Summers seems important here:
Harvard-trained economists have been running the US economy for a very long time, and continue to do so. Summers began his ascent
as a professor of economics at Harvard University, leaving shortly before Bill Clinton won the Presidency. He was clearly the
Neoliberal seed planted for the New American Century.
In 1993, Summers was appointed Undersecretary for International Affairs of the United States Department of the Treasury
under the Clinton Administration. In 1995, he was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under his long-time political
mentor Robert Rubin. In 1999, he succeeded Rubin as Secretary of the Treasury.
While working for the Clinton administration Summers played a leading role in the American response to the 1994 economic
crisis in Mexico, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the Russian financial crisis. He was also influential in the Harvard
Institute for International Development and American-advised privatization of the economies of the post-Soviet states, and
in the deregulation of the U.S financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.
At This Point the Ball is Passed to the Bush Team Republicans, while the Democrats Sit Back and Wait for 2008.
There's now a Treasury surplus to transfer to the wealthy, and the necessary deregulation for Wall Street empowerment is in
place. The Soviet era had ended and Russia is ended forever. The world is finally primed to be seized by the One Exceptional Power.
It's 2001, and we are standing on the threshold of the New American Century . Time to throw a flash-bang of chaos onto the world
stage and trigger the booming War Economy that will carry us directly to global control.
There's a rocky road ahead for Larry Summers. Summers introduces Epstein into the Harvard fold, but becomes reckless with
his newly-refined Neoliberalism and his opinions concerning "lady scholars."
Following the end of Clinton's term, Summers served as the 27th President of Harvard University from 2001 to 2006.
Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large part
from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with Andrei Shleifer,
and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering could be due to a
"different availability of aptitude at the high end", and less to patterns of discrimination and socialization. Remarking upon
political correctness in institutions of higher education, Summers said in 2016:
Summers resigned as Harvard's president in the wake of a no-confidence vote by Harvard faculty, which resulted in large
part from Summers's conflict with Cornel West, financial conflict of interest questions regarding his relationship with
Andrei Shleifer, and a 2005 speech in which he suggested that the under-representation of women in science and engineering
There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who
resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society
that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of
ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.
After his departure from Harvard, Summers cooled his jets on Wall Street, positioning himself to be called back into the game
when it was Team Democrat's turn in 2008.
Summers worked as a managing partner at the hedge fund D. E. Shaw & Co., and as a freelance speaker at other financial institutions,
including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers. Summers rejoined public service during
the Obama administration, serving as the Director of the White House United States National Economic Council for President
Barack Obama from January 2009 until November 2010, where he emerged as a key economic decision-maker in the Obama administration's
response to the Great Recession.
Jeffery Epstein continued to weave himself into the fabric of government like a good psychopath would. He was by no means the
only one.
Mueller came across as an old man.... muddling.... confused.... He was out of his depth. One would have to conclude that he is
not remotely credible based on his inability to answer questions and apparent ignorance of a report he is supposed to have
authored. Embarrassingly inept!
FFS, I live in the UK and even I have heard the link between Fusion GPS and the dodgy
dossier. Has Mueller been working alone in a cave or something? Has he tried Wikipedia?
le"> The had the lesson taught to them, but I seriously doubt that they learned
anything. I also think that Mueller was largely playing dumb. His job is to continue to raise
doubt, not to bring clarity. He is till doing a great job in that regards. I hope it leads to
jail time.
Mueller's playing dum to cover his own hide and the democraps should be ashamed wasting
tax payers money & that bringing the only work they done in 2 years corrupt sorry
individuals
Well worth watching this just for Tucker's superb commentary alone! With this Mueller
fiasco, a stake has been driven deep into the Deep State's heart.
"... He demonstrated a thin grasp of his own report's findings, even as he implored lawmakers in both parties to read it. He asked members of Congress to repeat their questions 48 times . ..."
"... That's not to say Mueller did nothing for Democrats. He said President Trump was not "exculpated" by his report. He raised the specter of falsified documents and all but said that he punted on obstruction of justice only because a sitting president cannot be indicted under existing Justice Department guidelines. He gamely testified his investigation was no "witch hunt." And some of his seeming confusion was likely strategic: he was trying to avoid giving partisans easy footage confirming their talking points. ..."
"... While Democrats have not totally given up on "collusion," moving the goalposts away from Hillary Clinton's detailed explanation of how the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the election toward vaguer references to "contacts" and "foreign help," obstruction of justice was the name of the game. Mueller acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the Trump campaign with collusion-related crimes, even if he stopped short of calling that an exoneration of the president. Paul Manafort, George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Roger Stone -- these were not criminal masterminds. In fact, they were all incredibly sloppy. If they had colluded, they all could easily have been charged. ..."
"... No one who could be indicted was charged with aiding the president in obstructing the investigation either. ..."
"... The real answer Mueller declined to give appears to be that his obstruction allegations would have hinged heavily on Trump's use presidential powers under Article II of the Constitution. The Justice Department under Barr's leadership does not believe this amounted to obstruction in theory or practice. Thus the self-evidently never-fired Mueller was reduced to dropping breadcrumbs and hoping congressional Democrats would find them. ..."
"... Mueller's seeming lack of familiarity with his own investigation lessened the GOP's problem because it helps shift the focus to the "angry Democrats" in the special counsel's office -- people like Andrew Weissman, who attended Hillary's election night party -- rather than Mueller himself. The Democrats are still at square one, trying to dial back Manchurian candidate expectations among the base and shift the impeachment rationale to Trump's passive willingness to benefit from Russian interference without expressing a modicum of outrage. ..."
"... With 95 Democrats willing to impeach Trump over mean tweets, anything is possible. But it's going to take a lot more than Mueller to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into that camp. ..."
"... The Steele dossier, whether a truthful compilation or a complete fabrication, is itself an attempt by foreign spies to influence our election. "Collusion" staring us in the face right here. ..."
"... The public spectacle was heart-breaking. It was obvious that Mueller had lost some mental faculties. Surely his special investigative team had to know that, having worked with him for 2+ years, and so the Democrat leadership had to know that as well. And yet they insisted he testify, even though he basically begged to not testify and let him just go off into the twilight of retirement. But no, they threatened to subpoena him. ..."
"... Actually, Trump committed a lot of unforced errors, as well as being generally lazy, stupid and unprepared. ..."
"... With this in mind, to believe the RussiaGate conspiracy theories, one must simultaneously believe that the Russians have abilities that border on psychic mind control superpowers, but at the same time, these same evil geniuses cannot be bothered to plan what to do if their nefarious schemes actually worked out. ..."
"... One can easily accept that Trump is a roaring moron, but one also has to believe that his alleged puppetmaster cannot take the time to consult an attorney or a peruse a copy of the United States Code, available for free on the internet to anyone who bothers to take a peek. And that's just the legal requirements. I won't even go into the clownshow that was Trump's appointments and staffing. ..."
"... The testimony was a complete success because it maintained the status quo. Trump is not going anywhere, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that Russia tampered with the election rendering even more sanctions and increasing cold war tensions, and the only ones indicted were accused of process crimes. Meanwhile, the business of Goldman Sachs gets done in the halls of power. ..."
"... Robert "Saddam has WMD of Mass Destruction" Mueller has been the bag man for the establishment for a long time. Even his dotage, he still managed to perform his job flawlessly. ..."
"... 12 indictments against often former employees of a Russian clickbait farm for spectacularly laughable memes that will never amount to anything because there will never be a trial. One of the parties showed up in court and demanded actual evidence as part of discovery, causing Mueller to desperately ask for a continuance. The judge called Mueller out by denying it. The judge also called Mueller out by showing that he had no evidence that the defendant at issue had any ties tot he Russian government. ..."
"... A paltry $150k was spent for online ads over two years, by Russians, they tell you. They also tell you that about half those ads didn't run until after the election was over and that most of the ads didn't endorse a specific candidate or policy. Yet, you insist this Russian social media blitz altered the outcome of your election somehow. With well north of $3 billion spent on traditional advertising, leave it to MSM to float a turd of such odious girth. ..."
"... Next, Mueller indicts 13 Russian intelligence journeymen and it will never amount to anything. None of them will ever be extradited. There will never be a trial. Never a legal discovery process. No burden of proof that they actually hacked or colluded. No US intelligence agency has ever examined the servers in question. ..."
"... An impeachment is another word for "indictment", and as the saying goes you can indict a ham sandwich. Or impeach a baloney sandwich. If Trump were to wind up in the dock it would be "anything goes", including subpoenas being issued to Madame Hillary. There won't be any impeachment. Too much of a danger of overflowing sewage. ..."
"... Seth Rich could rise up from the dead and show us all, live on CNN, how he leaked the DNC emails, right after DWS confessed on MSNBC to ordering Seth Rich's murder and HRC admitted under oath that she invented russiagate on a bet with Podesta to see whether people really are that stupid and gullible, and CNN, MSNBC and the entire DNC and their cultists would keep pushing the conspiracy theory, never even missing a beat. ..."
"... I'm glad Mr. Mueller finally admitted publicly that he held the President to an Orwellian standard of "probably guilty, which we can't prove, until proven innocent, which we never do" that no American has ever been held to by law enforcement. ..."
Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller testifies before the House Intelligence Committee about his report on Russian interference
in the 2016 presidential election in the Rayburn House Office Building July 24, 2019(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) The late Sen.
Arlen Specter ended the drive to impeach Bill Clinton by invoking Scottish law and voting "not proven" in the 42rd president's Senate
trial. Democrats hope to begin the drive to impeach Donald Trump with a finding by special counsel Robert Mueller that the worst
allegations against the 45th president are not proven.
Even this task was made more difficult by the former FBI director and Trump-Russia investigator's unimpressive public congressional
testimony. Mueller had trouble identifying questioners. He demonstrated a thin grasp of his own report's findings, even as he
implored lawmakers in both parties to read it. He asked members of Congress to repeat their questions
48 times .
The uber-competent G-man about whom liberals
sang Christmas carols was not on display Wednesday. "Mueller Time" gave way to Mr. Magoo.
A cursory glance at Politico 's homepage revealed the damage. "'Euphoria': White House, GOP exult after a flat Mueller
performance," blared the top headline. Another reads, "Bob Mueller is struggling." And another: "Impeachment drive slowed by Mueller's
troubles." Even the New York Times could only manage: "Mueller sticks to script but shows flashes of indignation."
"This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years,"
fretted Barack Obama's man David Axelrod. "And he does not appear as sharp as he was then."
That's not to say Mueller did nothing for Democrats. He said President Trump was not "exculpated" by his report. He raised
the specter of falsified documents and all but said that he punted on obstruction of justice only because a sitting president cannot
be indicted under existing Justice Department guidelines. He gamely testified his investigation was no "witch hunt." And some of
his seeming confusion was likely strategic: he was trying to avoid giving partisans easy footage confirming their talking points.
But Democrats wanted much more. Ever since Attorney General William Barr released his summary, they have wanted to challenge his
framing of the report. His testimony, like that 448-page document, contained plenty of damning information. The bottom line -- that
Mueller could not prove a Trump-Russia conspiracy to swing the 2016 presidential election and lacks a convincing explanation for
his obstruction equivocation -- remains unchanged.
While Democrats have not totally given up on "collusion,"
moving the goalposts away
from Hillary Clinton's
detailed explanation
of how the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to fix the election toward vaguer references to "contacts" and "foreign help,"
obstruction of justice was the name of the game. Mueller acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone in the
Trump campaign with collusion-related crimes, even if he stopped short of calling that an exoneration of the president. Paul Manafort,
George Papadopolous, Carter Page, Roger Stone -- these were not criminal masterminds. In fact, they were all incredibly sloppy. If
they had colluded, they all could easily have been charged.
If Justice Department regulations on presidential indictments did not prevent a finding of insufficient evidence to charge conspiracy,
why did these guidelines require Congress to make the final determination on obstruction? No one who could be indicted was charged
with aiding the president in obstructing the investigation either.
The real answer Mueller declined to give appears to be that his obstruction allegations would have hinged heavily on Trump's
use presidential powers under Article II of the Constitution. The Justice Department under Barr's leadership does not believe this
amounted to obstruction in theory or practice. Thus the self-evidently never-fired Mueller was reduced to dropping breadcrumbs and
hoping congressional Democrats would find them.
Both parties entered the hearings with a fundamental problem. For Republicans, how do you discredit Mueller for his negative
findings about the president while also affirming his failure to prove an election-related conspiracy as definitive? The Democrats'
dilemma was that they knew Trump had behaved badly in response to Russian election interference and the subsequent investigation,
but hoped Mueller would discover something worse. When he merely supplied color and a reliable narrator for what we largely already
knew, many Democrats wanted to pivot back to impeaching Trump over that unseemly behavior.
Mueller's seeming lack of familiarity with his own investigation lessened the GOP's problem because it helps shift the focus
to the "angry Democrats" in the special counsel's office -- people like Andrew Weissman, who attended Hillary's election night party
-- rather than Mueller himself. The Democrats are still at square one, trying to dial back Manchurian candidate expectations among
the base and shift the impeachment rationale to Trump's passive willingness to benefit from Russian interference without expressing
a modicum of outrage.
You can argue that we should expect more from a president than to simply have refrained from directly conspiring with a hostile
foreign power to reach the White House. Yet that case becomes harder to make when that is precisely what you have conditioned rank-and-file
Democrats to expect from the Mueller report. No dramatic reading of that report, least of all by a 74-year-old clearly no longer
accustomed to congressional testimony, will deliver on those expectations.
With
95 Democrats willing to impeach Trump over mean tweets, anything is possible. But it's going to take a lot more than Mueller
to move House Speaker Nancy Pelosi into that camp.
I would say this is by far the most charitable interpretation of Mueller's testimony I've seen. He didn't want to talk about the
'Steele Dossier' ... the whole basis for the Russiagate farce, and then claimed he didn't know who GPS Fusion was ... the outfit
hired by Clinton to write the dossier in the first place. That this whole pile of rubbish was not laughed out of existence is
a tribute to the ability of the media (who hated Trump), to convince a large number of people of a preposterous fantasy.
He reminds me a little bit of my dad, and a little bit of Cato the Younger. But to his fellow Republicans--he's Mr. Magoo.
The Steele dossier, whether a truthful compilation or a complete fabrication, is itself an attempt by foreign spies to influence
our election. "Collusion" staring us in the face right here.
Why haven't the Democrats been investigated for it?
Maybe because there's a little difference between hiring a private firm to do opposition research, and Russian military intelligence
stealing and releasing tens of thousands of private documents from one political party to help the other win the Presidency?
"You can argue that we should expect more from a president than to simply have refrained from directly conspiring with a hostile
foreign power to reach the White House."
Even after the spectacle, and the grueling two years of media hype, nothing has moved the dial from those who hate Trump, and
those who are Trump supporters. The 2020 election may again come down to the electoral college system. We already know where voters
on the upper east coast and California stand. Major populations.
The public spectacle was heart-breaking. It was obvious that Mueller had lost some mental faculties. Surely his special investigative
team had to know that, having worked with him for 2+ years, and so the Democrat leadership had to know that as well. And yet they
insisted he testify, even though he basically begged to not testify and let him just go off into the twilight of retirement. But
no, they threatened to subpoena him.
By all accounts, Mueller had a long a admirable career. Its disgusting that most people's memory of him and his legacy will
be of this last public embarrassing spectacle.
The Democratic Party has shown its complete lack of moral compass. When it comes to politics, anything goes, including the
destruction of people's lives. They even eat their own when its considered politically expedient. The Anita Hill hearings, Kavannah
hearings, me too movement, show me the man and the people around him, we'll find the crimes mentality. What's next? Murder? It
would not surprise me in the least.
Its clear now that the entire Russian collusion narrative was a set-up by the Democratic party. It was all about entrapment,
perjury traps, and selective media leaking.
The bottom line was, is, and always will be as follows: The Democrat Party expected their candidate to win in a cakewalk over
Trump. If she won we wouldn't have heard one word about these Russians (Oh, and by the way, do these "Russians" have names?).
It was Clinton's election to lose and she promptly went out and lost it! Period! End of story! In their eyes the candidate of
"The Deplorables" won and the Democrats are enraged--so enraged that since Election Day 2016 they have been doing all they can
do to delegitimize the election and Trump's status as POTUS. And all the while-- thanks to BOTH parties--the nation's infrastructure
steadily crumbles and the immigration crisis remains unresolved (to cite just two examples).
"On impeachment: Just imagine that Barak Obama had illegally spent $120,000 of his campaign cash for hush money to his prostitute.
What would happen?"--interguru
Democrats would rise in unison and begin shouting "It's only about sex!" And that time, they'd be correct.
Admit it, interguru, all the covering for Clinton that the Democrats conducted in order to yank his lying-under-oath balls
out of the fire rendered impotent their usual tactics of denigrate and defame.
Fine, but that has nothing to do with the russiagate conspiracy theory.
In fact, if Trump were really a puppet of Russia, they'd never let him commit an unforced error that pointless. Some money
could be funneled from any of a million sources, and nobody would be any the wiser.
Actually, Trump committed a lot of unforced errors, as well as being generally lazy, stupid and unprepared.
With this in mind, to believe the RussiaGate conspiracy theories, one must simultaneously believe that the Russians have
abilities that border on psychic mind control superpowers, but at the same time, these same evil geniuses cannot be bothered to
plan what to do if their nefarious schemes actually worked out.
Orwell wept.
One can easily accept that Trump is a roaring moron, but one also has to believe that his alleged puppetmaster cannot take
the time to consult an attorney or a peruse a copy of the United States Code, available for free on the internet to anyone who
bothers to take a peek. And that's just the legal requirements. I won't even go into the clownshow that was Trump's appointments
and staffing.
The testimony was a complete success because it maintained the status quo. Trump is not going anywhere, both Democrats and
Republicans agreed that Russia tampered with the election rendering even more sanctions and increasing cold war tensions, and
the only ones indicted were accused of process crimes. Meanwhile, the business of Goldman Sachs gets done in the halls of power.
Robert "Saddam has WMD of Mass Destruction" Mueller has been the bag man for the establishment for a long time. Even his
dotage, he still managed to perform his job flawlessly.
What utter nonsense, unless you believe that "Russia" wrote the DNC emails, or that a clickbait troll farm (see paragraph 95 of
the IRA indictment if you don't believe me) that has no discernable connection tot he Russian government has some amazing influence
over gullible American voters.
12 indictments against often former employees of a Russian clickbait farm for spectacularly laughable memes that will never
amount to anything because there will never be a trial. One of the parties showed up in court and demanded actual evidence as
part of discovery, causing Mueller to desperately ask for a continuance. The judge called Mueller out by denying it. The judge
also called Mueller out by showing that he had no evidence that the defendant at issue had any ties tot he Russian government.
A paltry $150k was spent for online ads over two years, by Russians, they tell you. They also tell you that about half
those ads didn't run until after the election was over and that most of the ads didn't endorse a specific candidate or policy.
Yet, you insist this Russian social media blitz altered the outcome of your election somehow. With well north of $3 billion spent
on traditional advertising, leave it to MSM to float a turd of such odious girth.
Next, Mueller indicts 13 Russian intelligence journeymen and it will never amount to anything. None of them will ever be
extradited. There will never be a trial. Never a legal discovery process. No burden of proof that they actually hacked or colluded.
No US intelligence agency has ever examined the servers in question.
Russians didn't write the emails and Julian Assange is emphatic that Russia had nothing to do with them. Yet, no one in our
vast and vaunted intelligence community has bothered to interview him. As they say, a smart lawyer never asks a question if he
might not want to hear the answer.
Everything, all of it, is based on intel supplied by a cyber security firm on the DNC payroll. You can't make this shit up.
The other indictments are thoroughly unrelated to hacking or collusion by anybody, much less Russia.
Sen Specter did NOT "end the drive to impeach Bill Clinton", as the opening sentence of this article declares. The drive to impeach
Bill Clinton ended when the House passed articles of impeachment. That's right: Bill Clinton was actually impeached. No, he wasn't
"convicted" in his senate trial (thanks to Specter) and so wasn't removed from office. But he was, actually, impeached.
Good question for trivia buffs: Only one of these presidents was impeached: Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Which one was it?
(Hint: Nixon resigned before the House impeached him.)
An impeachment is another word for "indictment", and as the saying goes you can indict a ham sandwich. Or impeach a baloney
sandwich. If Trump were to wind up in the dock it would be "anything goes", including subpoenas being issued to Madame Hillary.
There won't be any impeachment. Too much of a danger of overflowing sewage.
Seth Rich could rise up from the dead and show us all, live on CNN, how he leaked the DNC emails, right after DWS confessed
on MSNBC to ordering Seth Rich's murder and HRC admitted under oath that she invented russiagate on a bet with Podesta to see
whether people really are that stupid and gullible, and CNN, MSNBC and the entire DNC and their cultists would keep pushing the
conspiracy theory, never even missing a beat.
I'm thinking the Democrats just wanted Mueller to give them the go ahead on impeachment... that way they could always blame it
on him if the ploy failed... Too bad they are such cowards that none of the want to sign their name to impeachment proceedings...
I'm glad Mr. Mueller finally admitted publicly that he held the President to an Orwellian standard of "probably guilty, which
we can't prove, until proven innocent, which we never do" that no American has ever been held to by law enforcement.
I'll illustrate:
"If we had had confidence the President clearly committed a crime, we would have said so. We did not make a determination
as to whether the President did commit a crime."
"If we had had confidence the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not make a determination
as to whether the President did commit a crime."
Can anybody tell me the legal difference between those two statements? I really don't see any. Also, what was fascinating about
Mr. Mueller's press conference was when he said this:
"These indictments contain allegations and we are not commenting on the guilt or the innocence of any specific defendant.
Every defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty."
He actually paid indicted Russian nationals who will never stand trial in this country more constitutional lip service than
Trump. Absolutely gorgeous...
If the Democrats were using Mueller as their smoking gun to nail Trump it failed miserably. If they still want to impeach go ahead.
It guarantees Trump's reelection.
Mueller's investigation ended after all the subpoenas had been served, all the witnesses had been deposed, and all the evidence
analyzed. If, after that, he could not determine that the president had committed a crime, then, according to established jurisprudential
practice, the decision is that he is not guilty. It is singular that the 2 accusations, collusion and obstruction, were evaluated
differently.
In the case of conspiracy ("collusion") the final report says, "The investigation did not establish that members of the Trump
campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities." In the case of obstruction
of justice, the final report says, "If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly
did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable
to reach that judgment."
So, in the case of conspiracy, the prosecutor had to prove that the President was guilty ("did not establish" conspiracy);
in the case of obstruction, they had to prove that he was innocent ("did not commit obstruction"). Why did different standards
apply to the two accusations?
Mueller said he didn't recommend that the grand jury indict the President for obstruction because one cannot indict a sitting
President. But the President either obstructed justice or he didn't. If he did, why didn't Mueller say so? He didn't have to recommend
as indictment in order to state a conclusion based on facts revealed in the investigation. What he appears to be saying is that
because he couldn't prove that the President did not commit obstruction, he would recommend that congress play impeachment politics
with the issue.
So, instead of a resolution of this matter, Mueller decided to bequeath to the nation a festering sore that, with that aid
of congressional Democrats, would continue to undermine the President's administration.
Evidence accumulates that Obama was the real leader of this color revolution against Trump with Brannan as his chief lieutenant
and Comey as a willing accomplice.
Now that the dust has settled, one must ask why the Deep State wanted Trump gone. Why does the Obama-Clinton mafia hates him so
much? Is this due to Trump committed an unforgivable sin in suggesting we “get along with Russia” and thus potentially cut the
revenues of military-industrial complex ? This is not true -- Trump inflated the Pentagon budget to astronomical height. Then
why ?
Notable quotes:
"... The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama. ..."
"... Operation Crossfire Hurricane was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip Strozk texted the following to his mistress, Lisa Page : ..."
"... We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials, such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named in US intelligence documents. ..."
"... Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane? ..."
"... On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election to install Donald Trump? ..."
"... Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide. ..."
The full details of the plot to take out Donald Trump remain to be revealed. But there should now be no doubt that his effort was
not the work of a few rogue intelligence and law enforcement officials acting on their own. This was a full blown covert action undertaken
with the full knowledge and blessing of Barack Obama.
As
I have written previously , the claim that Russia tried to hijack our election is a damn lie. But you do not have to take my
word for it. Just listen to Barack Obama speaking in October 2016 in response to Donald Trump's expressed concerns about
election meddling :
"There is no serious person out there who would suggest that you could even rig America's elections, in part because they are
so decentralized. There is no evidence that that has happened in the past, or that there are instances that that could happen this
time," the president said to the future president in October 2016.
"Democracy survives because we recognize that there is something more important than any individual campaign, and that is making
sure the integrity and trust in our institutions sustains itself. Becasue Democracy works by consent, not by force," Obama said.
"I have never seen in my lifetime or in modern political history, any presidential candidate trying to discredit the elections
and the election process before votes have even taken place. It is unprecedented. It happens to be based on no fact. Every expert
regardless of political party... who has ever examined these issues in a serious way will tell you that instances of significant
voter fraud are not to be found. Keep in mind elections are run by state and local officials."
It is important to remember what had transpired in the Trump/Russia collusion case by this point. Operation Crossfire Hurricane
was launched the end of July 2016. CIA Director John Brennan briefed key Democrat members of Congress in early August on allegations
that Donald Trump was colluding with Vladimir Putin. And Peter Strzok traveled to London in early August 2016 to meet with the CIA
and with Alexander Downer, who was claiming that George Papadopolous was talking up the Russians. Following that trip
Strozk texted
the following to his mistress, Lisa Page :
Strzok: And hi. Went well, best we could have expected. Other than [REDACTED] quote: " the White House is running this. " My answer,
"well, maybe for you they are." And of course, I was planning on telling this guy, thanks for coming, we've got an hour, but with
Bill [Priestap] there, I've got no control .
Page: Yeah, whatever (re the WH comment). We've got the emails that say otherwise.
The White House clearly knew. But Strzok's text is not the only evidence. We also know that Senior Obama Administration officials,
such as NSC Director Susan Rice and UN Ambassdor Samantha Power, were pushing to "unmask" Trump campaign officials who were named
in US intelligence documents.
There are only two possibilities:
Obama was being briefed by Susan Rice and DNI James Clapper and CIA Director about the project
to take out Trump, or
Obama was kept in the dark.
Let us look at this from another angle. If the Russians were actually trying to interfere in the 2016 election, then it was known
to both US intelligence and law enforcement. Hell, we are told in the Mueller report that the FBI detected the Russians trying to
hack the DNC way back in 2015. If there really was intelligence on Russian efforts to meddle why did the Obama Administration do
nothing other than sanction FBI's Crossfire Hurricane?
On what basis did Barack Obama insist it was impossible to rig the US Presidential election? This is a critical anomaly. Why was
the Obama team asleep at the switch, especially on the intel front, it the Russians actually were engaged in rigging the election
to install Donald Trump?
My wife was for many years an election official in Virginia. IMO Obama was right in saying that a US presidential election
is impossible to "rig." The US Constitution requires that federal elections be run by the states WITHOUT federal supervision.
As a result the methods and equipment in the states and the various parts of the states vary widely and the state systems are
not tied together with a national electronic network as, for example, the system is in France where the result of a national election
is reported on TeeVee immediately when the polls close.
Asking the question, "Can you cite one specific case where a single vote was definitively changed by Russian meddling?"
causes panic in a person who is declaiming about the evils of Russian meddling in our elections.
When you ask that question, the invariable retort is that the Russians are so clever that you wouldn't know that you were being
gulled; or, when I say that I have never seen a Russian produced facebook ad, the rejoinder is that the Russians concentrated
on Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and, of course, I would have been privy to the bot-sent emails and facebook ads generated by
the Internet Research Agency.
You've maintained all along that the Russians interfered in the election, yet I believe it is your position that the Russians
did not change a single vote. Is that correct or do you believe the Russians changed the votes before tabulation?
What did the Russians do that the Trump and Hillary campaigns did not do? Did they also turnout the tens of thousands who showed
up for Trump rallies that Hillary could never muster? Are they still turning out thousands at recent Trump rallies? I'm curious
how come Brennan and Clapper could not turn out thousands to Hillary's rallies when according to our German friend "b", the omnipotent
US Intel services just turned out a quarter of the population of Hong Kong to protest CCP authoritarianism?
Did the Israeli, Saudi and Chinese governments interfere in the election? How would you compare what they did to what you believe
the Russians did?
uieter about it. All that is very different from the absolute covert nature of the Russian IO in the 2016 election. I have
no idea what China did or is doing.
You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication. The lies on this are enormous. If the FBI really had detected
GRU hacking of the DNC in 2015, which is claimed in the fabricated meme, then you would expect the FBI and the other counter intel
elements of the USG to take action. THEY DID NOTHING.
The issue of Russian hacking only emerged when Hillary and the DNC learned that DNC emails were going to be put out by WIKILEAKS.
Again, not one shred of actual evidence that the Russians did it, but blaming the Russians became a convenient excuse in a bid
to divert attention from the real story--i.e,. Hillary and the DNC colluded to defeat Bernie Sanders.
The only real solid evidence of colluding with foreigners, in this case the Ukraine, comes courtesy of Hillary and her campaign.
Hiring a foreign intel officer (ie. Steele) who then takes info from Russians of questionable background and spread it around
as "truth". That was not a Russian IO. Pure Clinton IO.
"What the Russians did was insert misattributed information and disinformation into the election cycle...That is what separates
the Russian IO from anything Clinton, Trump or any of their supporters did."
I believe supporters of both candidates did exactly what you say the Russians did - insert misattributed information & disinformation
into the media stream. If you watch MSNBC or Fox on any given day there is much assertion & opinion masquerading as news. And
the Twitter & Facebook and blog universe are teeming with stories and innuendo that are more fiction than fact all from anonymous
accounts.
The Russia Collusion hysteria is replete with examples of "misattributed information and disinformation". It seems that yellow
journalism is as American as apple pie.
The whole opaque PAC structure with names like "Americans for Democracy" funded by chain structures hiding the real financiers
and calling up down is something that we see growing in every election cycle and is already of significant scale both in terms
of financing and dubiousness.
It is also rather common that "experts" who are called upon to opine on issues routinely never disclose their conflicts of
interest. Jeffrey Sachs and so many others on the payroll of CCP entities never disclose those payments as they extoll the virtues
of offshoring our industrial base to China and are apologists for CCP espionage.
Blue peacock, supporters of Clinton and Trump did not put out misattributed info. They both put out truth, innuendo, exaggerations,
misleading info and even outright lies, but they put it out as themselves. They didn't represent themselves as someone other than
who they were. The PAC structure comes close to skirting this requirement for truthful attribution, but a quick internet search
blows away the facades of these PACs. What the Russians did was pure black propaganda.
You mean the kindly grandmother, Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States, did not inform President Obama that
the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant to surveil the Republican candidate for the presidency and members of his staff becasue he
was working with Russians? Or do you mean that James Comey failed to tell his boss, Loretta Lynch; or do you mean John Brennan
failed to tell Obama about that Steele dossier from Fusion GPS that Mueller know anything about; or do you mean that James Clapper
failed to tell Jeh Johnson about that too? The Russians made them do all those things as part of an interference campaign, right?
It couldn't have been they were corrupt and incompetant.
"Instead, Obama...." made an "If you like your doctor, you can keep you doctor" statement that he knew was completely false.
Trump didn't win, Russians influenced Americans to vote for Trump, just ask the losers of the election, their paid sources and
their colleagues in Congress. In fact Americans love Hilary so much she's just where in the polls right now?
I continue to be astounded by the outrage at "Russian meddling". So some Russians used the internet to post true or false information
on candidates in a election.... so what?...millions of American partisan trolls were doing the same thing for or against a candidate.
We had tons of fake info written by American bloggers and posters all over the net, Facebook, twitter etc..
Its not like Putin came to the US and gave a speech to congress in favor of Trump ...as Netanyahu did in appearing before the
US congress and urging them to go against President Obama's Syria policy for heaven's sake.
It is so ridiculous I have given up hope of finding enough IQs above that of a cabbage to form a sane government.
Obama seemed to have got a taste for spying on his domestic political opponents from monitoring Israeli attempts to block
the Iran nuclear deal. I think the lock her up stuff really scared the Obama people, who had much to hide.
1. The FBI cannot be trusted to uphold defend and protect our Constitution, as they sought actively
to overturn a duly elected POTUS.; and
2 - Mueller's incompetence is astounding.
Is the only entity of the Defense Department called the U.S. Army the only ones left actually upholding, defending, and protecting
our Constitution and our Constitution processes? I don't see the other entities of the DOD called Navy and Air Force doing their
jobs upholding our Constitution!
Thumbs up to the Army, thumbs down to the Navy and Air Force!
I'm a little more charitable to the FBI. The Trumps lied their asses off to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Which IMO,
wrong or right, left the FBI all but no recourse but to investigate those lies. Even if the lies were simply based in long-seated
personal habits, it takes investigation to prove that is the case.
"You have no evidence for the so-called Russian IO. It is a fabrication." In fact, Putin rejects the claim many times publicly
saying that Russia does not meddle in foreign elections as a matter of policy. Maybe I'm gullible, but I find his disclaimer pretty
convincing....
My question for Larry Johnson requires some speculation on his part: How did the claims of "Russia meddling" which began with
the DNC and Hillary campaign, take root at the FBI, CIA and NSA???
Is there an unseen connection between the Democrat leadership and the Intel agencies??? And --if there is-- does that mean
we are headed for a one-party system???
Larry, sorry to nitpick, but I have such regard for your work that it pains me to see the typographical error in your second sentence,
where you say "his error" shortly after referring to Trump. I'm guessing that you meant to say "this error", but it reads as if
it means "Trump's error".
And while I'm at it, your last sentence has "it" instead of "if".
Keep up your great work for this excellent website.
Sadly naive in that you think the conspirators were actually acting in good faith. You think they were right when they used
the Steele Dossier in applying for a FISA warrant in Colyyer's Star Chamber? Steele was a paid informant for the FBI as was Page.
"... Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while refusing to admit to this in public. ..."
"... Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the president during their January 2017 meeting in New York. ..."
"... What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. " They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said, adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found nothing." ..."
"... According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop" Trump's presidency for political reasons. ..."
"... "You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information" to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview. ..."
"... Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench to be FBI director. ..."
"... The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis, it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at the name on the address. ..."
"... This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. ..."
"... Does the DOJ investigate British agents? Serious question. ..."
Former FBI Director James Comey has been under investigation for misleading President
Trump - telling him in private that he wasn't the target of an ongoing FBI probe, while
refusing to admit to this in public.
According to
RealClearInvestigations ' Paul Sperry, "Justice Department Inspector General Michael
Horowitz will file a report in September which contains evidence that Comey was misleading the
president " while conducting an active investigation against him.
Even as he repeatedly assured Trump that he was not a target, the former director was
secretly trying to build a conspiracy case against the president, while at times acting as an
investigative agent . -
RCI
According to two US officials familiar with Horowitz's upcoming report on FBI misconduct,
Comey was essentially "running a covert operation" against Trump - which began with a
private "defensive briefing" shortly after the inauguration. RCI 's sources say that Horowitz
has pored over text messages between the FBI's former top-brass and other communications
suggesting that Comey was in fact conducting a "counterintelligence assessment" of the
president during their January 2017 meeting in New York.
What's more, Comey had an FBI agent in the White House who reported the activities of Trump
and his aides, according to 'other officials familiar with the matter.'
The agent, Anthony Ferrante, who specialized in cyber crime, left the White House around
the same time Comey was fired and soon joined a security consulting firm, where he contracted
with BuzzFeed to lead the news site's efforts to verify the Steele dossier, in connection
with a defamation lawsuit. -RCI
According to the report, Horowitz and his team have examined over 1 million documents and
conducted over 100 interviews - including sit-downs with Comey and other current and former FBI
and DOJ employees. "The period covering Comey's activities is believed to run from early
January 2017 to early May 2017, when Comey was fired and his deputy Andrew McCabe, as the
acting FBI director, formally
opened full counterintelligence and obstruction investigations of the president."
McCabe's deputy, Lisa Page, appeared to dissemble last year when asked in closed-door
testimony before the House Judiciary Committee if Comey and other FBI brass discussed opening
an obstruction case against Trump prior to his firing in May 2017. Initially, she flatly
denied it , swearing: "Obstruction of justice was not a topic of conversation during the time
frame you have described." But then, after conferring with her FBI-assigned lawyer, she
announced: " I need to take back my prior statement ." Page later conceded that there could
have been at least "discussions about potential criminal activity" involving the president .
-RCI
Comey coordination
Sperry notes that Comey wasn't working in isolation on the Trump effort. In particular,
Horowitz has looked at the January 6, 2017 briefing on the infamous 'Steele Dossier' - a
meeting which was used by BuzzFeed, CNN and others to legitimize reporting on the dossier's
salacious and unsubstantiated claims .
Comey's meeting with Trump took place one day after the FBI director met in the Oval
Office with President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to discuss how to brief Trump -- a
meeting attended by National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and National Intelligence Director James
Clapper, who would soon go to work for CNN. -RCI
While Comey claims in his book, "A Higher Loyalty" that he didn't have "a
counterintelligence case file open on [Trump]," former federal prosecutor and National Review
columnist Andrew McCarthy notes that just because Trump's name wasn't on a formal file or
surveillance warrant doesn't mean that he wasn't under investigation.
"They were hoping to surveil him incidentally, and they were trying to make a case on him,"
said McCarthy. " The real reason Comey did not want to repeat publicly the assurances he made
to Trump privately is that these assurances were misleading . The FBI strung Trump along,
telling him he was not a suspect while structuring the investigation in accordance with the
reality that Trump was the main subject ."
What's more, the FBI couldn't treat Trump as a suspect - formally, as they didn't have
the legal grounds to do so according to former FBI counterintelligence lawyer Mark Wauck. "
They had no probable cause against Trump himself for 'collusion' or espionage ," he said,
adding "They were scrambling to come up with anything to hang a hat on, but had found
nothing."
What remains unclear is why Comey would take such extraordinary steps against a sitting
president . The Mueller report concluded there was no basis for the Trump-Russia collusion
conspiracy theories. Comey himself was an early skeptic of the Steele dossier -- the
opposition research memos paid for by Hillary Clinton's campaign that were the road map of
collusion theories -- which he dismissed as "salacious and unverified." -RCI
According to House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Devin Nunes (R-CA), Comey and
the rest of the FBI's top team (including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page) were attempting to "stop"
Trump's presidency for political reasons.
"You have the culmination of the ultimate spying, where you have the FBI director spying
on the president, taking notes [and] illegally leaking those notes of classified information"
to the MSM, said Nunes in a recent interview.
They will whitewash Comey. The deep state is alive and well, the DoJ and the FBI are as
corrupt as they were the day before Trump took office.
Why do I say this? Well, the canary hasn't fallen off her perch yet. Hillary Clinton is
still singing her song, and even making noises like she's going to run again, and she's not
in prison. They have her solid on over a hundred felony counts of mishandling classified
documents and they've not touched her. Proof of life that the Deep State is still in
power.
So, was the Steele dossier the ex post facto excuse for illegally spying on Trump, or was
it the ex post facto diversion for ALL of Obama's spying on politically powerful people,
which we know included spying on the Senate Intelligence Committee, spying on reporters, and
spying on Trump. I'll bet Obama hopes the investigation doesn't get into all of his spying
activities, and I wouldn't be surprised government officials in charge of the spying
equipment are keeping it covered up because they don't want to lose their jobs (for either
allowing such to happen, or because they fear the spying apparatus will be eliminated).
Did Obama also spy on SCOTUS justices, Congressmen, other Senators and other rich and
powerful people? I'll bet he did, because we haven't seen all the unmasking documentation,
and Obama took it to his library so no one can see it (at least so he thinks). Further, look
at the way Brennan, Clapper, Comey and Rice are disparaging Trump (they protest too much).
And look at how all the allegations about Trump are blowing right back into the faces of the
Democrats who've shown their MO is to accuse their political opponents, of the illegal
activity in which the Democrats are engaged.
They need to go to jail, for a long time, if not be executed for treason.
Did Obama spy on SCOTUS justices, et al? - Yes. Look up project HAMR or "Hammer". MI5/6
was spying on all Americans comms to circumvent legal frameworks (5 eyes). Google is now
fully Chinese intelligence - TREASON. It's coming and it's gonna blow most people's
minds.
It started a very long time ago. 1913 was a notable date, so was JFK's assassination. So
was 9/11. So was Operation Paperclip. These monsters have been slithering around a while. Now
it's time for them to go bye-bye. Dark to Light. Execute.
Comey is just the political class operative who they brought in to save Scooter
Libby's butt in the Valerie Flame leak. Then he got a seven figure job as a reward at a hedge
fund (with no prior experience in the financial industry). Then, they took him off the bench
to be FBI director.
The larger problem is that the "five eyes" system is broken in favor of British
surveillance and interference in our elections, and, the Patriot Act practice of "masking" is
a complete violation of the fourth amendment and a fraud. From a fourth amendment analysis,
it's like letting the police search everyone's house every day as long as they don't look at
the name on the address.
That our broken secrecy system effectively legalized Watergate under Obama and the "five
eyes" is the real problem that needs fixing.
This investigation would explain why Comey, Brennan, and other members of Barry Obama's
regime are very quiet, while Congressional Democrats are freaking out. The end of the Deep
State is starting.
"... File talks about Mueller indulging big crimes as FBI director, helping Mueller's own eventual law firm to defraud millions out of a Hillary donor, with bribery of two USA federal judges, & threats to kill an ex-DOJ employee, with Mueller getting a big payday after he indulged it all as FBI chief, Mueller getting funds channeled from a criminal outfit based in the UK. ..."
Another item here, is the file which the US Department of Justice Inspector General
Michael Horowitz acknowledged receiving a few months back, a file detailing alleged criminal
acts of Robert Mueller himself.
The file was referenced in President Trump's tweets, a photo meme of Mueller in jail, and
the President saying, "Heroes will come of this, and it won't be Mueller"
File talks about Mueller indulging big crimes as FBI director, helping Mueller's own
eventual law firm to defraud millions out of a Hillary donor, with bribery of two USA federal
judges, & threats to kill an ex-DOJ employee, with Mueller getting a big payday after he
indulged it all as FBI chief, Mueller getting funds channeled from a criminal outfit based
in the UK.
'Report on evidence of felonies violating Civil Rights, and bribery by foreign agents,
implicating United States Special Counsel Robert S Mueller III as a criminally-tainted agent
of foreign & racketeering interests'
"... Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs. No solid facts. ..."
"... To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. ..."
"... CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said. ..."
"... If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence." ..."
"... The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced, as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also mistaken. ..."
"... It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up. ..."
There is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that supports the US Government's
assertion that the Russian Government hacked the DNC. In fact, the forensic computer evidence
that is available indicates that the emails from the DNC were downloaded onto something like a
thumb drive.
There also is zero forensic evidence in the public arena that the Russians passed/delivered
the DNC emails to Julian Assange/Wikileaks. There are only two ways to get DNC emails into the
hands of Wiki people--an electronic transfer or a physical/human transfer. That's it.
And here is what we know for certain. First, since Edward Snowden absconded with the NSA's
family jewels with the help of Wikileaks, U.S. and British intelligence assets have been
monitoring every single electronic communication to and from Wikileaks/Julian Assange. They
also have been conducting surveillance on all personal contacts with Assange and other key
members of the Wikileaks staff.
Given these facts you would think it would be easy for Robert Mueller to explain how the
Russians got their hands on the DNC emails and then passed them on to Wikileaks. But it is not
easy because the foundation of the case against the Russians rests on assumptions and beliefs.
No solid facts.
To reiterate a point I have raised in previous posts, the only entity to have forensic
access to the DNC computers, i.e. CrowdStrike, is on the record in the person of the
CrowdStrike CEO, Dimitri Alperovitch admitting they don't know how the Russians got access. Alperovitch told Washington Post Reporter Ellen Nakashima on
June 14, 2016 the following :
CrowdStrike is not sure how the hackers got in. The firm suspects they may have targeted DNC
employees with "spearphishing" emails. These are communications that appear legitimate -- often
made to look like they came from a colleague or someone trusted -- but that contain links or
attachments that when clicked on deploy malicious software that enables a hacker to gain access
to a computer. " But we don't have hard evidence ," Alperovitch said.
If CrowdStrike actually had conducted a legitimate forensic examination of the DNC
server/servers then they absolutely would have had "hard evidence."
Then, 13 months later, we have FBI Director Jim Comey admitting that the FBI relied on
CrowdStrike for its "evidence." Jim Comey testified to the House Intelligence Committee in
March 2017 and
stated the following :
"we never got direct access to the machines themselves. The DNC in the spring of 2016 hired
a firm that ultimately shared with us their forensics from their review of the system."
Now take a look at a very significant reversal of the US Government's position in the case
against Roger Stone. On 20 June 2019, US Attorney Jessie Liu filed a motion attempting to rebut
the argument presented by Stone's attorneys that there was no supporting evidence for the claim
that Russia hacked the DNC. Here are the key snippets from her filing:
As the government has argued (Doc. 122, at 6, 9, 14), Russia's role in the DNC hack is not
material to the eighteen findings of probable cause that Stone appears to be challenging. . . .
The government produced the CrowdStrike reports because the Indictment in this case referenced,
as background, CrowdStrike's statements about the DNC hack. Stone's statement that the
government has no other evidence is not only irrelevant to this proceeding but is also
mistaken.
Yet, when you read the original indictment, Roger Stone was put in the cross hairs because
he was allegedly communicating with Wikileaks/Julian Assange about the DNC emails. And those
emails are identified in the indictment as "stolen." The Government is hoping to nail Stone on
the charge of "lying" to Congress. Good luck with that.
It is a horrible irony that Stone is being persecuted with prosecution based on an even
bigger lie -- i.e., the Russians hacked the DNC. Russia did not hack the DNC. Let's hope that
Stone's lawyers get a chance to demand the US Government put up the evidence or shut up.
"... You might think the Democratic Party would be horrified at this result, which one conservative analyst calls: "one of the greatest self-defeating acts in history." You might think Democrats would now move quickly and decisively toward a strategy of offering a substantive political alternative, and abandon this awful own-goal Mueller/Russiagate tack that has already helped Trump immensely (and which they are not going to turn their way). That is obviously what would happen if the Democrats' main goal was to defeat Trump. But it isn't. ..."
"... As discussed above, the Democratic establishment's' main goal throughout this was not to "get" Trump, but to channel its own voters' disgust with him into support for some halcyon, liberal, status quo ante-Trump, and away from left demands for a radical change to the social, economic, and political conditions that produced him and his clueless establishment opponent in 2016. The Democrats' goal was, and is, not to defeat Trump, but to stave off the left. ..."
"... The Democrats' main goal in all this is not to impeach, or stop the re-election of, Donald Trump; it's to prevent the nomination and election of Bernie Sanders, or anyone like him. ..."
"... You mean the five million people who voted for Obama in 2012, in the 90% of counties that voted for Obama either in 2008 or 2012, but would not vote for Hillary in 2019, aren’t streaming back into—are indeed still streaming out of—the Democratic Party, despite all the Mueller investigation has done for them? Imagine that. ..."
"... What has Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation wrought? It’s either a shrewd political gambit sure to take down Trump, or it’s ridiculous political theater leading Democrats, and the country, over another cliff. Double-down or leave that table? ..."
So the Mueller investigation is over. The official "Report on the
Investigation into Russian Interference in the 2016 Presidential Election" has been written,
and is in the hands of Attorney General William Barr, who has issued a summary of its findings.
On the core mandate of the investigation, given to Special Counsel Mueller by Rod Rosenstein as
Acting Attorney General in May of 2017 -- to investigate "any links and/or coordination between
the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump"
-- the takeaway conclusion stated in the Mueller report, as quoted in the Barr summary, is that
"[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or
coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.1"
In the footnote indicated at the end of that sentence, Barr further clarifies the
comprehensive meaning of that conclusion, again quoting the Report's own words: "In assessing
potential conspiracy charges, the Special Counsel also considered whether members of the Trump
campaign 'coordinated' with Russian election interference activities. The Special Counsel
defined 'coordination' as an 'agreement -- tacit or express -- between the Trump Campaign and
the Russian government on election interference'."
Barr restates the point of the cited conclusion from the Mueller Report a number of times:
"The Special Counsel's investigation did not find that the Trump campaign or anyone associated
with it conspired or coordinated with Russia in its efforts to influence the 2016 U.S.
presidential election the Special Counsel did not find that any U.S. person or Trump campaign
official or associate conspired or knowingly coordinated with the IRA [Internet Research
Agency, the indicted Russian clickbait operation] in its efforts."
Thus, the Mueller investigation found no "conspiracy," no "coordination," -- i.e., no
"collusion" -- "tacit or express" between the Trump campaign or any U.S. person and the Russian
government. The Mueller investigation did not make, seal, or recommend any indictment for any
U.S. person for any such crime.
This is as clear and forceful a repudiation as one can get of the "collusion" narrative that
has been insistently shoved down our throats by the Democratic Party, its McResistance, its
allied media, and its allied intelligence and national security agencies and officials.
Whatever one wants to say about any other aspect of this investigation -- campaign finance
violations, obstruction of justice, etc. -- they were not the main saga for the past two+ years
as spun by the Russiagaters. The core narrative was that Donald Trump was some kind of Russian
agent or asset, arguably guilty of treason and taking orders from his handler/blackmailer
Vladimir Putin, who conspired with him to steal the 2016 election, and, furthermore, that Saint
Mueller and his investigation team of patriotic FBI/CIA agents were going to find the goods
that would have the Donald taken out of the White House in handcuffs for that.
Keith Olbermann's spectacular rant in January 2017 defined the core narrative and
exemplified the Trump Derangement Syndrome that powered it: an emotional, visceral hatred of
Donald Trump wrapped in the fantasy -- insisted upon as "elemental, existential fact" -- that
he was "put in power by Vladimir Putin." A projection and deflection, I would say, of liberals'
self-hatred for creating the conditions -- eight years of war and wealth transfer capped off by
a despised and entitled candidate -- that allowed a vapid clown like Trump to be elected. It
couldn't be our fault! It must have been Putin who arranged it!
Here's a highlight of Keith's delusional discourse. But, please watch the whole six-minute
video below. They may have been a bit calmer, but this is the fundamental lunacy that was
exuding from the rhetorical pores of Rachel, Chris, and Co. day after day for two+ years:
The military apparatus of this country is about to be handed over to scum, who are
beholden to scum, Russian scum! As things are today January 20th will not be an inauguration
but rather the end of the United States as an independent country. Donald John Trump is not a
president; he is a puppet, put in power by Vladimir Putin. Those who ignore these elemental,
existential facts -- Democrats or Republicans -- are traitors to this country. [Emphases in
original. Really, watch it.]
This -- Trump's secret, treasonous collusion with Putin, and not hush money or campaign
finance violations or "obstruction of justice" or his obvious overall sleaziness -- was
Russiagate.
Russiagate is Dead! Long Live Russiagate!
And it still is. Here's the demonstration in New York last Thursday, convened by the
MoveOn/Maddow #Resistance, singing from "the hymnal" about how Trump is a "Russian whore" who
is "busy blowing Vladimir":
Here are the three lines of excuse and denial currently being fired off by diehard
Russiagaters in their fighting retreat, and my responses to them.
1. The Mueller Report is irrelevant, anyhow. 'Cause either A) Per Congressional blowhard
Adam Schiff: There already "is direct evidence" proving Trump-Russia collusion, dating from
before the Mueller Investigation, so who cares what that doesn't find; or B) (My personal
favorite) Per former prosecutor and CNN legal expert Renato Mariotti: Of course there is no
evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, and it's "your fault" for letting Trump fool you into
thinking Mueller's job was to find it. (The Mueller "collusion" investigation was a red herring
orchestrated/promoted by Trump! I cannot make this up.)
Mueller's report will almost certainly disappoint you, and it's not his fault. It's your
fault for buying into Trump's false narrative that it is Mueller's' job to prove "collusion,"
a nearly impossible bar for any prosecutor to clear.
This is, of course, the weakest volley. It's absurd, patent bad faith, for Russiagaters to
pretend that they knew, thought, or suggested the Mueller investigation was irrelevant. It is
they who have been insisting that the integrity and super-sleuthiness of the "revered" Robert
Mueller himself was the thing that would nail Donald Trump for Russian collusion. To now deny
that any of that was important only acknowledges how thoroughly they have been fooling the
American people and/or themselves for two years. Either Adam Schiff had the goods on Trump's
traitorous Russian collusion two years ago, in which case he's got a lot of explaining to do
about why he's been stringing us along with Mueller, or Schiff is just bluffing. Place your
bets.
Russiagaters in 2017: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MUELLER KNOWS
Russiagaters in 2018: YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT MUELLER KNOWS
Russiagaters in 2019: Shut up Mueller, what would you know.
2. The Mueller Report didn't exonerate Trump entirely. It was agnostic about whether
Trump was guilty of "obstruction of justice," and there are probably many nasty things in the
report that may not be provably criminal, but nonetheless demonstrate what a slimeball Trump
is.
No, Russiagaters will not get away with denying that the core purpose of the Mueller
investigation was to prove Trump's traitorous relation to Vladimir Putin and the Russian
government, which helped him win the 2016 election. They will not get away with denying that,
if the Mueller investigation failed to prove that, it failed in its main purpose, as they
constantly defined and reinforced it, with table-pounding, hyperventilating, and -- a few days
ago! -- disco-dancing to "the hymnal."
They will not get away with trying to appropriate, as if it were their point all along, what
the left critics of Russiagate have been saying for two+ years -- that Donald Trump is a
slimeball grifter whose culpability for politically substantive and probably legally actionable
crimes and misdemeanors should not be hard to establish, without reverting to the absurd
accusation that he's a Russian agent.
These are the left critics of Russiagate and Trump, whom Russiagaters deliberately excluded
from all their media platforms, in order to make it seem that only right-wing Trump supporters
could be skeptical of Russiagate -- the left critics Russiagaters then excoriated as "Trump
enablers" and "Putin apologists" for speaking on the only media platforms that would host them.
Among them, Glenn Greenwald and Aaron Maté (who just deservedly won the I.F. Stone prize
for his Russiagate coverage) were the most prominent, but many others, including me, made this
point week after week (Brian Becker, Dave Lindorff, Dan Kovalik, Daniel Lazare, Ted Rall, to
name a few). As I put it in an essay last year: "There are a thousand reasons to criticize
Donald Trump That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. There are a number of
very good justifications for seeking his impeachment That he is a Kremlin agent is not one of
them."
So, it's a particularly slimy for Russiagaters to slip into the position that we Russiagate
skeptics have been enunciating, and they have been excluding, for two years, without
acknowledging that we were right and they were wrong and accounting for their effort to edit us
out.
3. But we haven't seen the whole Mueller Report! Barr may be fooling us! Mueller's own
team says so! You are now doing what you accused us of doing for two years -- abandoning proper
skepticism about Republicans like Barr and even Mueller (Yup. He's a suspicious Republican
now!), and assuming a final result we have not yet seen.
This is the one the Russiagaters like the most. Gotcha with your own logic!
Well, let's first of all thank those who are saying this for, again, recognizing that we
Russiagate critics had the right attitude toward such an investigation: cautious skepticism as
opposed to false certainty. And let's linger for a moment or more on how belated that
recognition is and what its delay cost.
But let's also recognize that what's being expressed here is the last-minute hope on the
part of the Russiagaters that the Mueller report actually does contain dispositive evidence of
Trump's treasonous Russian collusion. Because, again, that is the core accusation that hopeful
Russiagaters are still singing about, and nobody ever argued that evidence of other hijinks was
unlikely.
Well, that hope can only be realized if one or both of the following are true: 1) Barr's
quotes from the report exonerating Trump of collusion are complete fabrications, or 2) Mueller
both wrote those words even though they contradict the substance of his own report and declined
to indict a single U.S. person for such "collusion" even though he could have.
Sure, in the abstract, one or both of those conditions could be true. But there is no
evidence, none, that either is. The New York Times (NYT) report that set everyone aflutter
about the "concern" from "some members of Mr. Mueller's team" is anonymous, unspecified, and
second-hand. Read it carefully: The NYT did not report what any member of Mueller's team said,
but what "government officials and others familiar with their simmering frustrations" said.
Those "officials and others interviewed [not members of the Mueller team itself] declined to
flesh out" to the NYT what "some of the special counsel's investigators" were unhappy about. To
that empty hearsay, the NYT appends the phrase "although the report is believed to examine Mr.
Trump's efforts to thwart the investigation" -- suggesting, but not stating, that obstruction
of justice issues are the reasons for the investigators' "vexation." The NYT cannot state,
because it does not know, anything. It is reporting empty hearsay that is evidence of nothing,
but is meant to keep hope alive.
"[T]he report is believed to examine" is a particularly strange locution. Is the NYT
suggesting that the Mueller report might not have examined obstruction of justice
possibilities? Or is it just getting tangled up in its attempt to suggest this or that? Hey, it
could just as well be true that Barr's characterization of what the Mueller Report says about
"obstruction of justice" is a misleading fabrication. Maybe Mueller actually exonerated Trump
of that. If you mistrust Barr's version of what the Mueller Report says about collusion, why
not equally mistrust what it says about obstruction of justice?
There is no evidence that Barr's summary is radically misleading about the core collusion
conclusion of the Mueller Report. The walls are closing in, alright, on that story. The I'm
just being as cautious now as you were before! line is the opposite of the reasonable
skepticism is claims to be; it's Russiagaters clinging to a wish and a belief that something
they want to be true is, despite the determinate lack of any evidence.
It's not just the words; it's the melody, and the desperation in the voices. The core
Trump-blowing-Vladimir collusion song that #Resisters are still singing is a fantastical
fiction and the people still singing it are the pathetic choir on the Russiagate Titanic. And
while they're singing as they sink, Trump is escaping in the lifeboat they have provided him.
The single most definite and undeniable effect of the Mueller investigation on American
politics has been to hand Donald Trump a potent political weapon for his 2020 re-election
campaign. A real bombshell.
But it's worse than that. The falsity of the Trump-as-a-Russian-agent narrative does not
depend on any confidence in Mueller and his report or Barr and his summary. The truth is there
was no Russiagate investigation, in the sense of a serious attempt to find out whether Donald
Trump was taking orders from, or "coordinating" with, Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
No person in their right mind could believe that. Robert Mueller doesn't believe it. Nancy
Pelosi doesn't believe it. Adam Schiff doesn't believe it. John Brennan, James Clapper, and the
heads of intelligence agencies do not believe it. Not for a second. No knowledgeable
international affairs journalist or academic who thinks about it for two minutes believes it.
Sure, some politicians and media pundits did work themselves up into a state where they
internalized and projected a belief in the narrative, but few of them really believed it. They
were serving the Kool-Aid. Only the most gullible sectors of their target audience drank
it.
With some exceptions, to be sure (Donald Trump among them), the people in the highest
echelons of the state-media-academic apparatus are just not that stupid. And, most obvious and
important, Vladimir Putin is not that stupid, and they know he is not. Vladimir Putin would
never rely on Donald Trump to be his operative in a complex operation that required shrewdly
playing and evading the US intelligence and media apparatuses. Nobody is that stupid. Thinking
about it that way for a second dissipates the entire ridiculous idea. (Not to mention that
Trump ended up enacting a number of policies -- many more than Obama! -- contrary to Russian
interests.)
The obvious, which many people in the independent media and none in the mainstream media
(because it is so obvious, and would have blown their game) have pointed out, is that any real
investigation of Russiagate would have sought to talk with the principals who had direct
knowledge of who is responsible for leaking the infamous DNC documents: Julian Assange and
former British ambassador Craig Murray ("I know who leaked them. I've met the person who leaked
them."). They were essentially two undisputed eyewitnesses to the crime Mueller was supposed to
be investigating, and he made no effort to talk to either of them. Ipso facto, it was not
really an investigation, not a project whole purpose was to find the truth about whatever the
thing called "Russiagate" is supposed to be.
The Eternal Witch-hunt
It was a theater of discipline. Its purpose, which it achieved, was to discipline Trump, the
Democratic electorate, and the media. Its method was fishing around in the muck of Washington
consultants, lobbyists, and influence peddlers to generate indictments and plea bargains for
crimes irrelevant to the core mandate. Not hard, in a carceral state where prosecutors can pin
three felonies a day on anyone.
The US establishment, especially its national security arm, was genuinely shocked that their
anointed candidate, Hillary, who was, as Glen Ford puts it "'all in' with the global military
offensive" that Obama had run through Libya, Syria, and the coup in Ukraine, was defeated by a
nitwit candidate who was making impermissibly non-aggressive noises about things like Russia
and NATO, and who actually wanted to lose. For their part, the Democrats were horrified, and
did not want to face the necessary reckoning about the complete failure of their candidate, and
the best-of-all-possible-liberaloid-worlds strategy she personified.
So, "within 24 hours of her concession speech" Hillary's campaign team (Robby Mook and John
Podesta) created a "script they would pitch to the press and the public" to explain why she
lost. "Russian hacking was the centerpiece of the argument." A few months later, a coalition of
congressional Democrats,, establishment Republicans, and intelligence/natsec professionals
pressured Trump (who, we can now see clearly, is putty in the hands of the latter) to initiate
a Special Counsel investigation. Its ostensible goal was to investigate Russian collusion, but
its real goals were:
1) To discipline Trump, preventing any backpedaling on NATO/imperialist war-mongering
against Russia or any other target. Frankly, I think this was unnecessary. Trump never had any
depth of principle in his remarks about de-escalating with Russia and Syria. He was always a
staunch American exceptionalist and Zionist. Nobody has forced him (that's a right-wing
fantasy) to attack Syria, appoint John Bolton, recognize Israeli authority over Jerusalem and
the Golan Heights, or threaten Iran and Venezuela. But the natsec deep state actors did (and
do) not trust Trump's impulsiveness. They probably also thought it would be useful to "send a
message" to Russia, which, in their arrogance, they think they can, but they cannot,
"discipline," as I've discussed in a previous essay.
2) To discipline the media, making "Russian collusion," as Off-Guardian journalist Kit
Knightly says, "a concept that keeps everyone in check." Thus, a Russophobia-related
McCarthyite hysteria was engendered that defined any strong anti-interventionist or
anti-establishment sentiment as Russian-sown "divisiveness" and "Putin apologetics." This
discipline was eagerly accepted by the mainstream media, which joined in the related drive to
demand new forms of censorship for independent and internet media. The epitome of this is the
mainstream media's execrable, tacit and sometimes explicit acceptance of the US government's
campaign to prosecute Julian Assange.
3) To discipline and corral the Democratic constituency. Establishment Dems riled up
outraged progressives with deceptive implied promises to take Trump down based on the collusion
fiction, which excused Hillary and diverted their attention from the real egregious failures
and crimes that led their party to political ruin, and culminated in the election of Trump in
the first place. This discipline also instituted a #Resistance to Trump that involved the party
doing nothing substantively progressive in policy -- indeed, it allowed embracing Trump's most
egregious militarism and promoting an alliance with, a positive reverence for, the most
deceptive and reactionary institutions of the state.
Finally, incorporating point 2, perhaps the main point of this discipline -- indeed of the
whole Mueller enterprise -- was to stigmatize the leftists and socialists in and around the
party, who were questioning the collusion fiction and calling critical attention to the party's
failures, as crypto-fascist "Trump enablers" or "Putin's useful idiots." It's all about fencing
out the left and corralling the base.
Note the point regarding the deceptive implications about taking down Trump. Though they
gave the opposite impression to rile up their constituents, Democratic Congressional leaders,
for the reasons given above and others I laid out in a previous essay, did not think for a
second they were going to impeach Trump. They were never really after impeaching Trump; they
were and are after stringing along their dissatisfied progressive-minded voters. They, not
Trump, were and are the target of the foolery.
We should recognize that Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation achieved all of these goals,
and was therefore a great success. That's the case whatever part of the Mueller Report is
summarized and released, and whoever interprets it. The whole report with all of the underlying
evidence cannot legally be released to the public, and the Democrats know that. So, even if the
House gets it, the public will only ever see portions doled out by various interested
parties.
Thus, it will continue to be a great success. There will be endless leaks, and
interpretations of leaks, and arguments about the interpretations of leaks based on speculation
about what's still hidden. The Mueller Investigation has morphed into the Mueller Report, a
hermeneutical exercise that will go on forever.
The Mueller Investigation never happened and will never end.
It wasn't an investigation. It was/is an act of political theater, staged in an ongoing
dramatic festival where, increasingly, litigation substitutes for politics. Neither party has
anything of real, lasting, positive political substance to offer, and each finds itself in
power only because it conned the electorate into thinking it offered something new. That
results in every politician being vulnerable, but to a politically vacuous opposition that can
only mount its attacks on largely politically irrelevant, often impossible to adjudicate,
legalistic or moralistic grounds. Prosecutorial inquiry becomes a substitute for substantive
political challenge.
It's the template that was established by the Republicans against Bill Clinton, has been
adapted by the Democrats for Trump and Russiagate, and will be ceaselessly repeated. What's
coming next, already hinted at in William Barr's congressional testimony, will be an
investigation of FISAGate -- an inquiry into whether the FISA warrants for spying on the Trump
campaign and administration were obtained legally ("adequately predicated"). And/or
UkraineGate, about the evidence "Ukrainian law enforcement officials believe they have of
wrongdoing by American Democrats and their allies in Kiev, ranging from 2016 election
interference to obstructing criminal probes," involving Tony Podesta (who worked right
alongside Paul Manafort in Ukraine), Hillary Clinton's campaign, Joe Biden and his son, et. al.
And/or CampaignGate, the lawsuit claiming that Hillary's national campaign illegally took $84
million of "straw man" contributions made to state Democratic campaigns. And/or CraigGate,
involving powerful Democratic fixer and Obama White House Counsel, Gregory Craig, who has
already been referred to federal prosecutors by Mueller, and whose law firm has already paid a
$4.6 million-dollar fine for making false statement and failing to register under the Foreign
Agents Registration Act -- for work he did in Ukraine with -- who else? -- Paul Manafort.
There are Gates galore. If you haven't heard about any of these simmering scandals in the
way you've heard incessantly about, you know, Paul Manafort, perhaps that's because they didn't
fit into the "get Trump" theme of the Mueller Investigation/Russiagate political theater. Rest
assured the Republicans have, and will likely make sure that you do. If you think the
Republicans do not have at least as much of a chance to make a serious case with some of these
as Mueller did with Trump, you are wrong. If you think the Republicans will pursue any of these
investigations because they have the same principled concern as the Democrats about foreign
collusion in US elections, or the legality of campaign contributions or surveillance warrants,
you are right. They have none. Like the Democrats, they have zero concern for the ostensible
issues of principle, and infinite enthusiasm for mounting "gotcha" political theater.
Neither party really wants, or knows how, to engage in a sustained, principled debate on
substantive political issues -- things like universal-coverage, single-payer health insurance,
a job guarantee, a radical reduction of the military budget, an end to imperialist
intervention, increasing taxes on the wealthy and lowering them for working people, a break
from the "overwhelming" and destructive influence of Zionism, to name a few of the policies the
Democratic congressional leadership could have insisted on "investigating" over the last two
years..
Instead, both parties' political campaigns rely on otherizing appeals based on superficial
identity politics (white-affirmative on the one hand, POC-affirmative on the other) and,
mainly, on bashing the other party for all the problems it ignored or exacerbated, and all the
terrible policies it enacted, when it was in power -- and for the version of superficial,
otherizing identity politics it supposedly based those policies on (the real determinants of
class power remaining invisible). What both parties know how and will continue to do is mount
hypocritical legalistic and moralistic "investigations" of illegal campaign contributions,
support from foreign governments, teenage make-out sessions, personal-space violations, et.
al., that they are just "shocked, shocked" about.
It's Investigation Nation. Fake politics in the simulacrum of a democratic polity. Indeed,
someone, of some political perspicuity, might just notice, if only for a flash, that the people
who do pretty well politically are often the ones who frankly don't give a crap about all that.
Maybe because they're talking to people who don't give a crap about all that. But we wouldn't
want to confuse ourselves thinking on that for too long.
Which brings us to the last point about Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation mentioned
above. It may not (or may!) have been an intended goal, but it has been its most definite
political effect: The Mueller Investigation has been a great political gift to Donald Trump.
#Resisters and Russiagaters can wriggle around that all they want. They can insist that, once
we get the whole Report, we'll turn the corner, the bombshell will explode, the walls will
close in -- for real, this time. Sure.
But even they can't deny that's the case right now. Trump is saying the Mueller
investigation was a political counterattack against the result of the election, masquerading as
a disinterested judicial investigation; that it was based on a flimsy fiction and designed to
dig around in every corner of his closets to find nasty and incriminating things that were
entirely irrelevant to the ostensible mandate of the investigation and to any substantive,
upfront political critique -- a "witchhunt," a "fishing expedition." And he is right. And too
many people in the country know he's right. At this point, even most Russiagaters themselves
know it -- though they don't care, and will never admit it.
So now Trump, who could have been attacked for two years politically on substance for
betraying most of the promises that got him elected -- more aggressive war, more tax cuts for
the wealthy, threatening Medicare and Social Security -- has instead been handed, by the
Democrats, the strongest arrow he now has in his political quiver. As Matt Taibbi says: "Trump
couldn't have asked for a juicier campaign issue, and an easier way to argue that 'elites'
don't respect the democratic choices of flyover voters. It's hard to imagine what could look
worse."
You might think the Democratic Party would be horrified at this result, which one conservative
analyst calls: "one of the greatest self-defeating acts in history." You might think Democrats
would now move quickly and decisively toward a strategy of offering a substantive political
alternative, and abandon this awful own-goal Mueller/Russiagate tack that has already helped
Trump immensely (and which they are not going to turn their way). That is obviously what would
happen if the Democrats' main goal was to defeat Trump. But it isn't.
As discussed above, the Democratic establishment's' main goal throughout this was not to "get"
Trump, but to channel its own voters' disgust with him into support for some halcyon, liberal,
status quo ante-Trump, and away from left demands for a radical change to the social, economic,
and political conditions that produced him and his clueless establishment opponent in 2016. The
Democrats' goal was, and is, not to defeat Trump, but to stave off the left.
What they are doing with the Mueller Investigation/Russiagate is what they did in the
primaries in 2016: Then, they deliberately promoted Trump as an opponent, while working
assiduously to cheat their own leftist candidate; now, they gin up a fictional spy story whose
inevitable collapse helps Trump, but on which they will double down, in order to continue
branding "divisive" leftists who challenge any return to their version of status-quo normalcy
as the Kremlin's "useful idiots."
The Democrats' main goal in all this is not to impeach, or stop the re-election of, Donald
Trump; it's to prevent the nomination and election of Bernie Sanders, or anyone like him.
Russiagate Forever
Here's Tim Ryan's presidential campaign kickoff speech in Youngstown, Ohio, a poster city of
late American capitalist deindustrialization, explaining to the voters what is causing the
destruction of their lives and towns. After complaining that "We have politicians and leaders
today that want to divide us. They want to put us in one box or the other. You know, you can't
be for business and for labor," he elaborates:
Yup, it’s those Russians, you see, sowing division through certain “politicians and leaders,” who are preventing us from
fixing our healthcare, education, economic and government systems. This—doubling down on Russiagate—is the centrist Democrats’
idea of a winning political appeal. I consider it utterly delusional.
I heard last week from a friend in Western Pennsylvania, not too far from Youngstown. She’s a good person who is trying to
organize Democrats in the area to beat Trump in 2020, and, pleading for advice, she expressed her exasperation: “They’re leaving
the party!”
You mean the five million people who voted for Obama in 2012, in the 90% of counties that voted for Obama either in 2008
or 2012, but would not vote for Hillary in 2019, aren’t streaming back into—are indeed still streaming out of—the Democratic
Party, despite all the Mueller investigation has done for them? Imagine that.
What has Russiagate/The Mueller Investigation wrought? It’s either a shrewd political gambit sure to take down Trump, or
it’s ridiculous political theater leading Democrats, and the country, over another cliff. Double-down or leave that table?
The State Department revealed in a letter to Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) that it had
identified "multiple security incidents" committed by current or former employees who handled
Hillary Clinton's emails, according to
Fox News .
So far 23 "violations" and seven "infractions" have been issued as a part of
the department's ongoing investigation - a number that will likely rise according to State
Department Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Legislative Affairs, Mary Elizabeth Taylor.
"To this point, the Department has assessed culpability to 15 individuals, some of whom were
culpable in multiple security incidents," said Taylor in the letter to Grassley, adding "DS has
issued 23 violations and 7 infractions incidents. ... This number will likely change as the
review progresses. "
October 2016. Trump promises to assign a special prosecutor to investigate HRC if he is
elected president; given before multiple witnesses incl HRC herself.
First this is another nothing burger, the Demos can't afford to hang Clinton and neither
can the Republicans.. If Clinton goes down she will takes 3/4 of congress and senate with
her. The Clinton cartel takes anyone out that tries to go against them. Look at the number of
dead following them all the way back from Arkansas. We forget history, how about the three
planes that flew down to arkansas supposedly collecting all the Clinton Foundation paperwork
etc......???? Another case of the crowds cheering they are going down. Didn't see that happen
either, but did see a lot of people mysteriously show up dead.
Nope just sit back and enjoy the passing of a great country that is in decline. Thank the
Clintons, Bushes, and Obamas for the quick descent to the level this country is now. Just
wait until 2020 when it all goes up in smoke. No pun intended Obama.
DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct?
FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony?
AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers.
DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports?
AGENT: (cough) . (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI.
DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where
the server was examined?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: No? No what? These contractors don't run the FBI Laboratories?
AGENT: No. The laboratories are staffed by FBI personnel.
DEF ATT: Well I don't understand. Why would contractors be writing reports about computers that are forensically examined in
FBI laboratories?
AGENT: Well, the servers were not examined in the FBI laboratory.
(silence)
DEF ATT: Oh, so the FBI examined the servers on site to determine who had hacked them and what was taken?
AGENT: Uh .. no.
DEF ATT: They didn't examine them on site?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, where did they examine them?
AGENT: Well, uh .. the FBI did not examine them.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: The FBI did not directly examine the servers.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, the FBI has presented to the Grand Jury and to this court and SWORN AS FACT that the Russians hacked
the DNC computers. You are basing your SWORN testimony on a report given to you by a contractor, while the FBI has NEVER actually
examined the computer hardware?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, who prepared the analysis reports that the FBI relied on to give this sworn testimony?
AGENT: Crowdstrike, Inc.
DEF ATT: So, which Crowdstrike employee gave you the report?
AGENT: We didn't receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: What?
AGENT: We did not receive the report directly from Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Well, where did you find this report?
AGENT: It was given to us by the people who hired Crowdstrike to examine and secure their computer network and hardware.
DEF ATT: Oh, so the report was given to you by the technical employees for the company that hired Crowdstrike to examine their
servers?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Well, who gave you the report?
AGENT: Legal counsel for the company that hired Crowdstrike.
DEF ATT: Why would legal counsel be the ones giving you the report?
AGENT: I don't know.
DEF ATT: Well, what company hired Crowdstrike?
AGENT: The Democratic National Committee.
DEF ATT: Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. You are giving SWORN testimony to this court that Russia hacked the servers
of the Democratic National Committee. And you are basing that testimony on a report given to you by the LAWYERS for the Democratic
National Committee. And you, the FBI, never actually saw or examined the computer servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Well, can you provide a copy of the technical report produced by Crowdstrike for the Democratic National Committee?
AGENT: No, I cannot.
DEF ATT: Well, can you go back to your office and get a copy of the report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why? Are you locked out of your office?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: I don't understand. Why can you not provide a copy of this report?
AGENT: Because I do not have a copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Did you lose it?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why do you not have a copy of the report?
AGENT: Because we were never given a final copy of the report.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, if you didn't get a copy of the report, upon what information are you basing your testimony?
AGENT: On a draft copy of the report.
DEF ATT: A draft copy?
AGENT: Yes.
DEF ATT: Was a final report ever delivered to the FBI?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, did you get to read the entire report?
AGENT: No.
DEF ATT: Why not?
AGENT: Because large portions were redacted.
DEF ATT: Agent Smith, let me get this straight. The FBI is claiming that the Russians hacked the DNC servers. But the FBI never
actually saw the computer hardware, nor examined it? Is that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And the FBI never actually examined the log files or computer email or any aspect of the data from the servers? Is
that correct?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: And you are basing your testimony on the word of Counsel for the Democratic National Committee, the people who provided
you with a REDACTED copy of a DRAFT report, not on the actual technical personnel who supposedly examined the servers?
AGENT: That is correct.
DEF ATT: Your honor, I have a few motions I would like to make at this time.
PRESIDING JUDGE: I'm sure you do, Counselor. (as he turns toward the prosecutors) And I feel like I am in a mood to grant them.
Brilliant! that sums it up nicely. of course, if the servers were not hacked and were instead "thumbnailed" that leads to a
whole pile of other questions (including asking wiileaks for their source and about the murder of seth rich).
"... Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike Whitney and Philip Giraldi described the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. ..."
"... The CIA spies in England and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies. ..."
"... It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did. ..."
"... Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war. ..."
"... In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych. They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad. The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown. ..."
"... You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient. ..."
"... Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult to deal with them. ..."
"... People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and media men should know their place. ..."
"... How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy? ..."
"... These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation. ..."
"... Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI. ..."
"... It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes. If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers. ..."
"... It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control. The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control; it's firmly IN control. ..."
"... It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism – depending on the case. ..."
"... And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money, because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism ..."
"... The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance. ..."
"... Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA. ..."
"... Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors, but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor is a spook and he does what he wants. ..."
"... John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves. ..."
"... A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country, its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion and terror. ..."
"... Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses. ..."
"... Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments. ..."
"... While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control. They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it. ..."
Conspiratorially-minded writers envisaged the Shadow World Government as a board of evil sages surrounded by the financiers and
cinema moguls. That would be bad enough; in infinitely worse reality, our world is run by the Junior Ganymede that went berserk.
It is not a government, but a network, like freemasonry of old, and it consists chiefly of treacherous spies and pens-for-hire, two
kinds of service personnel, that collected a lot of data and tools of influence, and instead of serving their masters loyally, had
decided to lead the world in the direction they prefer.
German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the last head of the Abwehr, Hitler's Military Intelligence, had been such a spy with political
ambitions. He supported Hitler as the mighty enemy of Communism; on a certain stage he came to conclusion that the US will do the
job better and switched to the Anglo-American side. He was uncovered and executed for treason. His colleague General Reinhard Gehlen
also betrayed his Führer and had switched to the American side. After the war, he continued his war against Soviet Russia, this time
for CIA instead of Abwehr.
The spies are treacherous by their nature. They contact people who betrayed their countries; they work under cover, pretending
to be somebody else; for them the switch of loyalty is as usual and normal as the gender change operation for a Moroccan doctor who
is doing that 8 to 5 every day. They mix with foreign spies, they kill people with impunity; they break every law, human or divine.
They are extremely dangerous if they do it for their own country. They are infinitely more dangerous if they work for themselves
and still keep their institutional capabilities and international network.
Recently we had a painful reminding of their treacherous nature. Venezuela's top spy, the former director of the Bolivarian National
Intelligence Service (Sebin), Manuel Cristopher Figuera , had switched sides during the last coup attempt and escaped abroad
as the coup failed. He discovered that his membership on the Junior Ganymede of the spooks is more important for him than his duty
to his country and its constitution.
Within America, the alphabet agencies from NSA to CIA to FBI had betrayed their country as obviously as Figuera did, though
they didn't run away, yet. Our colleagues Mike
Whitney and Philip Giraldi described
the conspiracy organised by John Brennan of CIA with active participation of FBI's James Comey, to regime-change the US. In
the conspiracy, foreign intelligence agencies, primarily the British GCHQ, played an important role. As by law, these spies aren't
allowed to operate on their home ground, they go into you-scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back routine. The CIA spies in England
and passes the results to the British Intelligence. MI6 spies in the US and passes the results to CIA. They became integrated to
unbelievable extent in the worldwide network of spies.
It is not the Deep State anymore; it is world spooks who had united against their legitimate masters. Instead of staying loyal
to their country, the spooks betrayed their countries. They are not only strictly-for-cash – they think they know better what is
good for you. In a way, they are a new incarnation of the
Cecil Rhodes Society . Democratically-elected politicians
and statesmen have to obey them or meet their displeasure, as Corbyn and Trump did.
Everywhere, in the US, the UK, and Russia, the spooks became too powerful to handle. The CIA stood behind assassination of
JFK and tried to take down Trump. The British Intelligence undermined Jeremy Corbyn, after assisting the CIA in pushing for the Iraq
war. They created the Steele Dossier, invented the Skripal hoax and had brought Russia and the West to the brink of nuclear war.
Russian spooks are in a special relations mode with the global network – for many years. In Russia, persistent rumours claim the
perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the KGB chief (1967 – 1982)
Yuri Andropov . He and his appointees
dismantled the socialist state and prepared the takeover of 1991 in the interests of the One World project.
Andropov (who had stepped into Brezhnev's shoes in 1982 and died in 1984) had advanced Gorbachev and his architect of glasnost,
Alexander Yakovlev . Andropov
also promoted the arch-traitor KGB General Oleg Kalugin
to head its counter-intelligence. Later, Kalugin betrayed his country, escaped to the US and delivered all Russian spies he knew
of to the FBI hands.
In late 1980s-early 1990s, the KGB, originally the guarding dog of the Russian working class, had betrayed its Communist masters
and switched to work for the Network. But for their betrayal, Gorbachev would not be able to destroy his country so fast: the KGB
neutralised or misinformed the Communist leadership.
They allowed Chernobyl to explode; they permitted a German pilot to land on the Red Square – this was used by Gorbachev as an
excuse to sack the whole lot of patriotic generals. The KGB people were active in subverting other socialist states, too. They executed
the Romanian leader Ceausescu and his wife; they brought down the GDR, the socialist Germany; they plotted with Yeltsin against Gorbachev
and with Gorbachev against Romanov. As the result of their plotting, the USSR fell apart.
The KGB plotters of 1991 had thought that post-Communist Russia would be treated by the West like the prodigal son, with a fattened
calf being slaughtered for the welcome feast. To their disappointment, the stupid bastards discovered that their country was to play
the part of the fattened calf at the feast, and they were turned from unseen rulers into billionaires' bodyguards. Years later, Vladimir
Putin came to power in Russia with the blessing of the world spooks and bankers, but being too independent a man to submit, he took
his country into its present nationalist course, trying to regain some lost ground. The dissatisfied spooks supported him.
Only recently Putin began to trim the wild growth of his own intelligence service, the FSB. It is possible the cautious president
had been alerted by the surprising insistence of the Western media that the alleged attempt on Skripal and other visible cases had
been attributed to the GRU, the relatively small Russian Military Intelligence, while the much bigger FSB had been forgotten. The
head of
FSB cybercrime department had been arrested and sentenced for lengthy term of imprisonment, and two FSB colonels had been arrested
as the search of their premises revealed immense
amounts of cash , both Russian and foreign currency. Such piles of roubles and dollars could be assembled only for an attempt
to change the regime, as it was demanded by the Network.
In the Ukraine, the heads of their state security, SBU had plotted against the last legitimate president Mr Victor Yanukovych.
They helped to organise and run the Maidan 2014 manifestations and misled their President, until he was forced to escape abroad.
The Maidan manifestations could be compared with the Yellow Vests movement; however, Macron, an appointee of the Network, had support
of his spies, and stayed in power, while Yanukovych had been betrayed and overthrown.
In the US, the spooks allowed Donald Trump to become the leading Republican candidate, for they thought he would certainly lose
to Mme Clinton. Surprisingly, he had won, and since then, this man who was advanced as an easy prey, as a buffoon, had been hunted
by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry.
You'd ask me, were they so stupid that they believed their own propaganda of inevitable Clinton's victory? Yes, they were
and are stupid. They are no sages, evil or benevolent. My main objection to the conspiracy theorists is that they usually view the
plotters as omniscient and all-powerful. They are too greedy to be all-powerful, and they are too silly to be omniscient.
Their knowledge of official leaders' faults gives them their feeling of power, but this knowledge can be translated into actual
control only for weak-minded men. Strong leaders do not submit easily. Putin has had his quota of imprudent or outright criminal
acts in his past, but he never allowed the blackmailers to dictate him their agenda. Netanyahu, another strong man of modern politics,
also had managed to survive blackmail. Meanwhile, Trump defeated all attempts to unseat him, though his enemies had used his alleged
lack of delicacy in relation to women, blacks and Jews to its utmost. He waded through the deep pond of Russiagate like Gulliver.
But he has to purge the alphabet agencies to reach safety.
In Russia, the problem is acute. Many Russian spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other
countries than to their fellow citizens. There is a freemasonic quality in their camaraderie. Such a quality could be commendable
in soldiers after the war is over, but here the war is going on. Russian spooks are particularly besotted with their declared enemies;
apparently it is the Christian quality of the Russian soul, but a very annoying one.
When Snowden reached Moscow after his daring escape from Hong Kong, the Russian TV screened a discussion that I participated in,
among journalists, members of parliament and ex-spies. The Russian spooks said that Snowden is a traitor; a person who betrayed his
agency can't be trusted and should be sent to the US in shackles. They felt they belong to the Spy World, with its inner bond, while
their loyalty to Russia was a distant second.
During recent visit of Mike Pompeo to Sochi, the head of SVR, the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, Mr Sergey Naryshkin
proposed the State Secretary Mike Pompeo, the ex-CIA director,
to expand contacts between Russian and US special services at a higher level. He clarified that he actively interacted with Pompeo
during the period when he was the head of the CIA. Why would he need contacts with his adversary? It would be much better to avoid
contacts altogether.
Even president Putin, who is first of all a Russian nationalist (or a patriot, as they say), who has granted Snowden asylum in
Moscow at a high price of seriously worsening relations with Obama's administration, even Putin has told Stone that Snowden shouldn't
have leaked the documents the way he did. "If he didn't like anything at his work he should have simply resigned, but he went further",
a response proving he didn't completely freed himself from the spooks' freemasonry.
While the spooks plot, the scribes justify their plots. Media is also a weapon, and a mighty one. In Richard Wagner's opera
Lohengrin , the protagonist is defeated by the smear campaign in the media. Despite his miraculous arrival, despite his glorious
victory, the evil witch succeeds to poison minds of the hero's wife and of the court. The pen can counter the sword. When the two
are integrated, as in the union of spooks and scribes, it is too dangerous tool to leave intact.
In many countries of Europe, editorial international policies had been outsourced to the spooky Atlantic Council, the Washington-based
think tank. The Atlantic Council is strongly connected with NATO alliance and with Brussels bureaucracy, the tools of control over
Europe. Another tool is
The
Integrity Initiative , where the difference between spies and journalists is
blurred
. And so is the difference between the left and the right. The left and the right-wing media use different arguments, surprisingly
leading to the same bottom line, because both are tools of warfare for the same Network.
In 1930s, they were divided. The German and the British agents pulled and pushed in the opposite directions. The Russian military
became so friendly with the Germans, that at a certain time, Hitler believed the Russian generals would side with him against their
own leader. The Russian spooks were befriended by the Brits, and had tried to push Russia to confront Hitler. The cautious Marshal
Stalin had purged the Red Army's pro-German Generals, and the NKVD's pro-British spooks, and delayed the outbreak of hostilities
as much as he could. Now, however, the secret services' cohesion and integration increased to the next level, making it difficult
to deal with them.
If they are so powerful, integrated and united, shouldn't we throw a towel in the ring and surrender? Hell, no! Their success
is their undoing. They plot, but Allah is the best plotter, – our Muslim friends say. Indeed, when they succeed to suborn a party,
the people vote with their feet. The Brexit is the case to consider. The Network wanted to undermine the Brexit; so they neutralised
Corbyn by the antisemitism pursuit while May had made all she could to sabotage the Brexit while calling for it in public. Awfully
clever of them – but the British voter responded with dropping both established parties. So their clever plot misfired.
People are fickle and not always know what is good for them; there are many demagogues to mislead the crowd. And still, elected
legitimate officials should have precedence in governing, while non-elected ones should obey – and it means the Network spooks and
media men should know their place.
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
Spymasters are usually renowned for their inscrutability and for playing their cards close to their vests.
These characters have indulged in an orgy of highly conspicuous partisan political meddling and ranting that has created
the strong public impression that they engaged in an attempted coup to overthrow a sitting American president on the basis of
a frame-up that was largely fueled by Russian disinformation.
Brennan in particular: can you imagine any previous CIA director comporting himself in this manner? Throwing all caution
to the winds? Inconceivable. Brennan, Comey and Clapper have inflicted serious damage on the reputation of the CIA, FBI and ODNI.
Forthcoming books will no doubt get into all the remarkable and bizarre details.
Donald Trump has demonstrated the ability to troll and goad many of his opponents into a state of imbecility. It's a negotiating
tactic -- knock them off balance, provoke them to lose control. No matter how smart they are, some people take the bait.
I am sitting here pointing to my nose. Spies run the world – contemporary history in a nutshell. A few provisos:
– It's not just illegal surveillance and blackmail that gives the spies power, it's impunity for even the gravest crimes.
If you don't get the message of blackmail you can be tortured or shot, with a bullet like JFK and RFK and Reagan, or with illegal
biological weapons like Daschel and Leahy. Institutionalized impunity stares us in the face from US state papers.
– It's not that CIA and other neo-Gestapos escaped control. They were designed from inception for totalitarian control.
The one poor bastard in Congress who pointed that out, Tydings, had McCarthy sicced on him for his cheek. CIA is not out of control;
it's firmly IN control.
– There is a crucial difference between US and Russian spies. Russians can go over the head of their government to the world.
That's the only effective check on state criminal enterprise like CIA. Article 17 of the Russian Constitution says "in the Russian
Federation rights and freedoms of person and citizen are recognized and guaranteed pursuant to the generally recognized principles
and norms of international law and in accordance with this Constitution." Article 18 states that rights and freedoms of the person
and citizen are directly applicable, which prevents the kind of bad-faith tricks the USA pulls, like declaring "non-self executing"
treaties, or making legally void reservations, declarations, understandings, and provisos to screw you out of your rights. Article
46(3) guarantees citizens a constitutional right to appeal to inter-State bodies for the protection of human rights and freedoms
if internal legal redress has been exhausted. Ratified international treaties including the ICCPR supersede any domestic legislation
stipulating otherwise.
Isn't it just collusion that holds certain elite groups together, including in some businesses where a lot of chicanery goes on.
The most important thing is to be in on it as one of them, not as a person who can be trusted not to say anything, but as one
of the gang. It's exactly how absenteeism-friendly offices full of crony parents with crony-parent managers work.
The only problem for the guy at the tippy top is what would happen if such a tight group turned on him / her? Maybe, some leaders
see the value in protecting a few brave individuals, like Snowden, letting any coup-stirring spooks know that some people are
watching the Establishment's rights violators, too. Those with technical knowledge have more capacity than most to do it or, at
least, to understand how it works.
In a country founded on individual liberties, including Fourth Amendment privacy rights that were protected by less greedy
generations, the US should have elected leaders that put the US Constitution first, but that is too much to ask in an era when
the top dogs in business & government are all colluding for money.
In Russia, persistent rumours claim the perilous Perestroika of Mikhail Gorbachev had been designed and initiated by the
KGB chief (1967 – 1982) Yuri Andropov.
FWIW, I have heard the exact same thing from Russian commenters myself. Some have insisted that, if Andropov had lived long
enough, he would have carried glasnost and perestroika himself.
Spies are loathsome bunch, with questionable loyalties and personal integrity. But I believe that overall they play a positive
role. They play a positive role because they help adversaries gain insight into their adversary's activities.
If it wasn't for the spies, paranoia about what the other side is doing can get out of hand and cause wrong actions to take
place. The problem with the spies is also that no one knows how much they can be trusted and on whose side they are really on.
It was funny during the Cold war (the original one) – whenever each side unveiled that a spy from the other side has defected
to them – they would say it was because of ideology – i.e. the spy defected to them because he "believed" in "democracy" or socialism
– depending on the case.
And in order to discredit their own spies when they defected to the other side – they would say that they did it for money,
because they were greedy and that they betrayed "democracy" or socialism.
The other crucial role that spies usually play is that they allow the adversaries to keep technological balance via industrial
espionage. By transferring top military secrets, they don't allow any side to gain crucial strategic advantage that might encourage
them to do something foolish – like start a nuclear war. Prime example of this were probably the Rosenbergs – who helped USSR
close the nuclear weapons gap with US and kept the world in a shaky nuclear arms balance.
Profound analysis by Mr. Shamir. It confirms that one of the important reasons for the decline of freemasonry is the monopolization
of political conspiracy by the intelligence services. Who needs the lodge when you have the CIA.
An aspect of the rule of spies that Mr. Shamir does not touch on is the legitimization of this rule through popular culture.
This started with the James Bond novels and movies and by now has become ubiquitous. Spies and assassins are the heroes of the
masses. While secrecy is still needed for tactical reasons in the case of specific operations, overall secrecy is not needed nor
even desirable. So you have thugs like Pompeo actually boasting of their villainy before audiences of college students at Texas
A&M and you have the Mossad supporting the publication of the book Rise and Kill First which is an extensive account of their
world-wide assassination policy. They have the power; now they want the perks that go with it, including being treated like rock
stars.
dear mr Shamir, the criminals are not only stupid but also utterly wicked. they will be stricken down in the twinkling of the
eye and will cry out why God? all the righteous will shout for joy and give thanks to the Almighty for judging Babylon. woe unto
them! they will have no place to hide or run to.
Ezekiel 9 (NKJV)
The Wicked Are Slain
9 Then He called out in my hearing with a loud voice, saying, "Let those who have charge over the city draw near, each with a
deadly weapon in his hand." 2 And suddenly six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his
battle-ax in his hand. One man among them was clothed with linen and had a writer's inkhorn at his side. They went in and stood
beside the bronze altar.
3 Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub, where it had been, to the threshold of the temple. And He
called to the man clothed with linen, who had the writer's inkhorn at his side; 4 and the Lord said to him, "Go through the midst
of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and cry over all the abominations
that are done within it."
5 To the others He said in my hearing, "Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
6 Utterly slay old and young men, maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark; and
begin at My sanctuary." So they began with the elders who were before the temple. 7 Then He said to them, "Defile the temple,
and fill the courts with the slain. Go out!" And they went out and killed in the city.
8 So it was, that while they were killing them, I was left alone; and I fell on my face and cried out, and said, "Ah, Lord
God! Will You destroy all the remnant of Israel in pouring out Your fury on Jerusalem?"
9 Then He said to me, "The iniquity of the house of Israel and Judah is exceedingly great, and the land is full of bloodshed,
and the city full of perversity; for they say, 'The Lord has forsaken the land, and the Lord does not see!' 10 And as for Me also,
My eye will neither spare, nor will I have pity, but I will recompense their deeds on their own head."
11 Just then, the man clothed with linen, who had the inkhorn at his side, reported back and said, "I have done as You commanded
me."
E Michael Jones was just warning President Trump about the possibility of this in the Straits of Hormuz.
https://youtu.be/iIm3WuJAVEE?t=272
Spooks are everywhere, from secretaries "losing" important communications to CNN news anchors roleplaying with crisis actors,
but they are at their most powerful when they are appointed to powerful positions. President Trump's National Security Advisor
is a spook and he does what he wants.
John le Carre described it perfectly in "A Perfect Spy". The spooks form their own country. They are only loyal to themselves.
@Antares that's because the Mossad
isn't like "our" spy agencies. it's closer to the old paradigm of the hashishim or true assassins. Mossad "agents" don't gad around
wearing dark glasses and tapping phones; they run proper deep cover operations. "sleepers" is a term used in the USA. they have
jobs. they look "normal". They integrate
Do spies run the world? No not really, bankers run the world.
Bankers constitute most of the deep state in the US/UK in particular and most of Europe. It is the bankers/deep state which
control the intelligence agencies. The ethnicity of a hefty proportion of said bankers is plain to see for anyone with functioning
critical faculties. How else can a tiny country in the middle east have such influence in the US? How else do we explain why 2/3
of the UK parliament are "friends of Israel" How come financial institutions can commit felonies and no one does jail time? why
is Israel allowed to commit war crimes and break international law with total impunity? who got bailed out of their gambling debts
at the expense of inflicting "austerity" on most of the western world?
How did John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Christopher Steele and other Spygate principals manage
to rise to the top of the intelligence bureaucracy?
A global supra-powerful, organized and united, privately directed, publicly backed society of high technology robin hood_mercenary_spooks
who conduct sub-legal "scratch-my-back-I'll-scratch-your-back [in the nation of the other] routines"; who ignore duty to country,
its constitutions, its laws and human rights. The are evil, global acting, high technology nomads with a monopoly on extortion
and terror.
Since winning, Trump has been hunted by the spooks-and-scribes freemasonry. <fallacy is that Trump could have gained the assistence
of every American, had Trump just used his powers to declassify all secret information and make it available to the public, instead
he chases Assange, and continues to conduct the affairs of his office in secret.
Propaganda preys on belief.. it is more powerful than an atomic weapon.. when the facts are hidden or when the facts are changed,
distorted or destroyed.
Your statement "spooks and ex-spooks feel more proximity to their enemies and colleagues in other countries than to their
fellow citizens" fails makes clear the importance of containment-of-citizen access to information. Nation states are armed, rule
making structures that invent propaganda and control access to information. Information containment and filtering is the essence
of the political and economic power of a national leader and it is more import to the evil your article addresses.
https://theintercept.com/2019/05/08/josh-gottheimer-democrats-yemen/
<i wrote IRT to the article, that contents appearing in private media supported monopoly powered corporations and distributed
to the public, direct the use of military and the willingness of soldiers of 22 different countries.
Control of the media is 50 times more important than control of the government? Nearly all actions of consequence are intended
to drain the governed masses and such efforts can only be successful if the lobbying, false-misleading mind controlling privately
owned (92% own by just 6 entities) centrally directed media can effectively control the all information environments.
I am bothered by you article because it looks to be Trumped weighted and failes to make clear it is these secret apolitical,
human rights abusers, that direct the contents of the media distributed articles that appear in the privately owmed, media distributed
to the public. Also not explained is how the cost of advertising is shared by the monopoly powered corporations, and it is that
advertising that is the source of support that keeps the fake news in business, the nation state propaganda in line, and the support
of robin -hood terror.
Monopoly powered global corporation advertising funds the fake and misleading private media, that is why the open internet
has been shut in tight. In order for the evil, global acting, high technology nomads to continue their extortion and terror activities
they need the media, its their only real weapon. I have never meet a member of any of the twenty two agencies that was not a trained,
certified mental case terrorist.
I think the interplay between the spooks and scribes warrants a deeper explanation. Covert action refers to anything in which
the author can disclaim his responsibility, ie it looks like someone else or something else. The handler in a political operation
cannot abuse his agent because the agent is the actor. The handler in an intelligence gathering operation can abuse his agent
because the agent merely enables action.
The political operations in this case are propaganda. The Congress of Cultural Freedom is the most clearly described one to
date. Propaganda is necessary in any mass society to ensure that voters care about the right issues, the right way, at the right
time. Propaganda can be true, false, or a mix of the two. Black propaganda deals in falsehoods, ie the Steele Dossier. Black propaganda
works best when it enables a pre-planned operation, but it pollutes the intelligence gathering process with disinformation.
Intelligence gathering is colloquially called investigative reporting. If anyone knows about Gary Webb, Alan Frankovich, or
Michael Hastings they know you can't really do that job well for very long. So how do the old timers last so long? It's a back
and forth. The reporter brings all of his information on a subject to his intelligence source (handler). The source then says,
"print this, print that, sit on that, and since you've been a good boy here's a little something you didn't know." The true role
of the investigative reporter is to conduct counterintelligence and package it as a limited hangout.
While understanding the mechanics is helpful don't neglect the purpose. Why is more important than how. The why is control.
They don't care what you believe, but only what you do. You can be on the left, right, mainstream, or fringe and they won't care
as long as you eat what they serve. Take a minute to think about what they want you to do and strongly consider not doing it.
@Sean McBride And now Trump should
have then all rounded up and hung from the trees in the front of the Whitehouse. Anything less should be seen as encouragement.
The worst among us rule over the rest of us. As Plato said, this needs to change. How to do that? We don't know, but we desperately
need to find out ..
Obama was a very effective promoter of what might be called the "globalist" agenda. He of course didn't invent it but did appoint
those three.
Wayne Madsen gave a convincing account in his speculation that both Obama's parent's were CIA operatives. So it's "all
the family" and in the details one might conclude with the author that indeed "spies run the world."
Looks like ZH commenters audience wants heads on Comey and Brennan on the plate. That's a bad sign for Dems chances in
2020 elections: the loger Russiagate is in the center of attention the lesser are their chances to win elections and Dems top
brass is closely linked with Russiagate color revolution plotters in intelligence agencies and as such clearly can be charged
with sedution.
Notable quotes:
"... In May, a dispute erupted over whether Comey or Brennan pushed to include the Steele Dossier in the US intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference. According to Fox News , an email chain exists indicating that Comey told his subordinates that Brennan insisted on the dossier's inclusion, while a former CIA official " put the blame squarely on Comey ," according to the report. ..."
"... "Comey and Brennan have made a lot of statements, some under oath, about the origins of the Trump Russia investigation, the timing and role of the Steele dossier and reasons for surveillance of Trump campaign officials. As I've been saying for awhile now, some of that is inconsistent with the contents of classified documents and the sworn testimony of other witnesses," Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill. ..."
"... "And more recently, some of what Brennan and Comey have been saying is now inconsistent with one another. As Attorney General Barr said this morning, it just doesn't jive. Someone isn't telling the truth," he continued. - The Hill ..."
"... Perhaps Congressional Republicans will focus next on Joseph Mifsud - the Maltese professor and Clinton ally who 'seeded' the rumor that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton ..."
"... The CIA needs to be broken into intelligence and information collection and reporting and Covert operations needs to go to the military. ..."
"... The FBI needs to be broken into criminal and CI organizations. Give CI to DIS ..."
"... This is rather stunning. In letters from Representative Doug Collins to Inspector General Horowitz and AG Bill Barr, Collins identifies Deputy Asst. Director Peter Strzok as the official who leaked grand jury information to the media and yet the DOJ refused to prosecute. Incredible." ..."
Congressional Republicans have set their sights on former FBI Director James Comey and
former CIA Director John Brennan for their roles in the Trump-Russia 'witch hunt' that may have
been conducted illegally using flimsy evidence.
In particular, GOP lawmakers along with President Trump are looking to blame the two former
intelligence chiefs over the use of the highly controversial Steele report - created by former
UK spy Christopher Steele .
The dossier, a shadowy document that makes a series of salacious allegations about Trump,
has long been a flashpoint for Republicans.
Some Republicans allege that FBI investigators relied too heavily on it to obtain a
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant on former Trump campaign aide Carter
Page. Some of the allegations in the dossier have been verified, while others were proven
false or remain unsubstantiated. - The
Hill
In May, a dispute erupted over whether Comey or Brennan pushed to include the Steele Dossier
in the US intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference. According to Fox
News , an email chain exists indicating that Comey told his subordinates that Brennan insisted
on the dossier's inclusion, while a former CIA official " put the blame squarely on Comey ,"
according to the report.
According to former Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), communications between Comey and Brennan are the
key to unlocking the decisions behind the dossier .
"Whoever is investigating this, tell them to look for emails between Brennan and Comey in
December of 2016 ," Gowdy told Fox News 's Sean Hannity last month.
Republican lawmakers took Gowdy's cue.
"Comey and Brennan have made a lot of statements, some under oath, about the origins of
the Trump Russia investigation, the timing and role of the Steele dossier and reasons for
surveillance of Trump campaign officials. As I've been saying for awhile now, some of that is
inconsistent with the contents of classified documents and the sworn testimony of other
witnesses," Rep. John
Ratcliffe (R-Texas), a member of the Judiciary Committee, told The Hill.
"And more recently, some of what Brennan and Comey have been saying is now inconsistent
with one another. As Attorney General Barr said this morning, it just doesn't jive. Someone
isn't telling the truth," he continued. - The
Hill
Attorney General William Barr has placed Connecticut US attorney John Duham in charge of
reviewing the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation, while President Trump gave Barr
complete power to declassify information linked to the investigation - leading Democrats to
suggest that Trump would 'pursue a political agenda' while investigating the politicized 'witch
hunt' against him.
"Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will
make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting this country from
those who wish to do us harm," said Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA).
Perhaps Congressional Republicans will focus next on
Joseph Mifsud - the Maltese professor and Clinton ally who 'seeded' the rumor that Russia
had dirt on Hillary Clinton .
joego1 , 6 minutes ago
They want to protect their "sources and methods" for treason- **** their secret elite
society
boattrash , 10 minutes ago
" "Whoever is investigating this, tell them to look for emails between Brennan and Comey
in December of 2016... " "
Does this imply that we're just now considering looking into their emails mid-way
through 2019? For. ****'s. Sake.
Python1342 , 8 minutes ago
What makes you think they don't have it , remember during discovery, you never know
when, how, who where the evidence come from...
boattrash , 5 minutes ago
'What makes you think they don't have it "
Well, they're still walking around, stirring ****, instead of twitching at the end of a
******* rope. That was my first clue.
Shift For Brains , 12 minutes ago
Something that is often overlooked despite the absolutely surreal nature of the fact: Both
FBI director Comey and CIA chief Brennan were overt communists (if voting for communists
qualifies you as a communist) as recently as the 70s and 80s.
Does anyone have an idea how you rise to the top of two of the most sensitive intelligence
positions in the USA with a background like that? Do you think they maybe got a little help
from folks who wanted them there?
Only in what was formerly known as The United states of America could those who supported
communism rise to those positions.
This is NEVER going to end with voting out the incumbents or re-organizing government,
i.e. shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic. It will end either with the total enslavement
of America as we have seen in other totalitarian states or those who are orchestrating this
will be brought to swift, and final, judgement by ordinary Americans.
PerilouseTimes , 13 minutes ago
Sure, the GOP is going to make everything all right. You would be better off voting for
goop than GOP.
Gold Banit , 18 minutes ago
Wow! How did America get so dumb?
Wake up and bend over you American sheep (people) and smile as your Masters (politicians)
are going to **** you up the *** again...Fact
Welcome to America, the home of the dumb naive brainwashed and just *******
stupid....Fact
The USA!
The USA Is The Most Corrupt Lying Nation On The Planet....Fact
Hillary Clinton will never be charged and will never go to jail...Fact
The USA was behind 911....Fact
The USA did not land a man on the Moon....Fact
Half of the USA can't read...Fact
Half of the USA is dumb naive brainwashed and stupid....Fact
Half of the USA still think that Russians voted in the 2016 election...Fact
Half of the USA think that Hillary Clinton is their President...Fact
Half of the USA can't find USA on a map...Fact
The USA has the most fat ugly people on the planet.....Fact
pelican , 20 minutes ago
The CIA needs to be broken into intelligence and information collection and reporting and
Covert operations needs to go to the military.
The FBI needs to be broken into criminal and CI organizations. Give CI to DIS.
This attitude which clearly exists that they are above the white house and congress needs
to dealt with.
hoytmonger , 27 minutes ago
This is just more distraction from the actual corruption to fill the endless hours of
cable news shows and keep the sheep at each other's throats.
Joebloinvestor , 29 minutes ago
Wray should be at a podium daily expressing his contempt for FBI agents that ruined the
agency.
Instead, he proves he is as worthless as Danny Werfel was at the IRS.
enough of this , 29 minutes ago
The walls are closing in on the sneaky Praetorians, who thought they could pull off their
half-*** scheme unscathed. But daylight has a way of shining through the sand they attempted
to throw in our face.
Those two traitors are only the start. If the list of those sent to prison or executed
does not include many more than Comey and Brennan then you know those two are ust the
sacrifices the Deep State offers up to keep doing business as usual.
iSage , 30 minutes ago
Bring them into a room, read them their rights and try them for Treason, it is time!
VWAndy , 30 minutes ago
Its the DC two step folks. We seen this before. They all talk about justice with a tear in
the eye like it was some kinda wonderful thing. And yet the crooks are still running the
show.
If Trump wanted to win he woulda been declassifying stuff on a daily basis from day one.
Its not like he could run out of dirt to bury the corrupt with.
muhfugger , 40 minutes ago
All investigations of anybody except the lowest deep state sewer rat ends up as "crimes
noted... decline to prosecute". So why would I expect anything different from these 2
clowns.
Karl Marxist , 40 minutes ago
Because if this **** were thoroughly investigated, the Clintons would be a huge target but
also Teresa May and the Queen of Pirates herself. Wow! I mean, wouldn't FASAB 56 enter into
all this? And the missing $21 trillion from the federal budget?
VWAndy , 44 minutes ago
Its not about politics folks. Its just plain old corruption of every level of government. Same as it ever was.
Let me know when they start locking them all up.
muhfugger , 43 minutes ago
You and I in a concentration camp is more likely.
DingleBarryObummer , 39 minutes ago
the screwing around will continue until morale improves
VWAndy , 43 minutes ago
Really none of the crooks look worried about going to jail. They laugh at the very
idea.
MadelynMarie , 40 minutes ago
So far, it's not looking like anyone is going to jail. If the DOJ refuses to prosecute
smaller fish like Strozk and McCabe, then what's the likelihood of Comey and Brennan going to
prison??
"This is rather stunning. In letters from Representative Doug Collins to Inspector General
Horowitz and AG Bill Barr, Collins identifies Deputy Asst. Director Peter Strzok as the
official
who leaked grand jury information to the media and yet the DOJ refused to prosecute.
Incredible."
"Citing the ongoing internal investigation of FBI leaks to media, from the 2018
OIG report on FBI conduct , today the Office of Inspector General outlined a preponderance of evidence against a corrupt FBI
Deputy Asst. Director. However, the DOJ is refusing to prosecute"
"The
568-pages contained a multitude of examples of FBI misconduct (media leaks etc.), but the
same IG report summary said "no illegal activity was discovered." In the Sessions/Rosenstein
led DOJ there was a disconnect between the summary/conclusions and the body of evidence.
With that in mind, how could the Bill Barr DOJ prosecute on evidence of behavior from
within a report where the Rod Rosenstein DOJ conclusion was no evidence of "intentional
wrongdoing"?
In short, he can't."
Nature_Boy_Wooooo , 49 minutes ago
Make them pay the American taxpayers back for the money wasted on the phone Russia
investigation.
Oldwood , 54 minutes ago
"Selectively declassifying sources and methods in order to serve a political agenda will
make it harder for the intelligence community to do their jobs protecting (THEMSELVES) from
those who wish to do (THEM) harm," said Senate Intelligence Vice Chairman Mark Warner
(D-VA).
muhfugger , 44 minutes ago
Warner is treasonous DEEP STATE and needs to be dealt with accordingly.
Consuelo , 56 minutes ago
"GOP Targets Comey And Brennan As Investigations Heat Up"
That's right. Keep the plebes entertained with palace intrigue while the architects and perpetrators of
this Treasonous Criminality sail off into the calm sunset of $600k speaking engagements and
feminist book tours with their daughter-by-another-man...
Everybodys All American , 49 minutes ago
Comey and Brennan will either sing or face the consequences of this hoax themselves. It
will be their choice and if they want to bring down Obama this is the best way to go about
doing it.
yerfej , 59 minutes ago
Two sets of laws, one for academia, courts, media, and bureaucracy who are all progressive
leftists. If the moron people don't wake up right now we will be living under state elites
who HATE us.
"... "All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't understand what you're looking at." ..."
Whatever you may think of Trump, the people who set out to 'get him' are the scum of the
Earth. I recommend listening to the two-part interview of George Papadopoulos with Mark
Steyn, where he describes the convoluted plot to use him to bring down Trump.
What they did to this guy is truly disgusting. Brennan belongs in a prison cell, and he
should be sharing it with Mueller. Papadopoulos also has written a book about his
experiences called 'Deep State Target, How I got caught in the crosshairs of the plot to
bring down President Trump.
And, a final comment. Hillary Clinton proved beyond all doubt that she and not Trump was
not fit to be President. To engage in this scheme and then to raise tensions through the
roof with a nuclear superpower, which can destroy this country, is about as low and selfish
as it is possible to be.
As I stated on the open thread, to paraphrase Muller;
I don't give a s###. figure it out yourself, Im f***ing outta' here.
The whole point of impeachment, is to have a show trial, not actually impeach. If the
thing is on TV, the American people may watch it, and that would be interesting.
Not to worry though, Pelosi and Schumer won't let that happen. Appeasing their donors,is
all they care about.
psycho @ 2 quoting C. Johnston stated;
"All political analysis which favors either the Democratic Party or the Republican
Party is inherently worthless, because both parties are made of swamp and exist in service of
the swamp. If you can't see that the entire system is one unified block of corruption and
that ordinary people need to come together and unite against it, then you really don't
understand what you're looking at."
"... Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration (Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence. ..."
"... Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to "roll out" their misbegotten "war on terror," which only served to exponentially increase worldwide terrorism . ..."
"... A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney's ginning up intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took Mueller up on his offer, emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice President Dick Cheney's claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He also never responded to my email. ..."
"... Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the " post 9/11 round-up " of about 1,000 immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI "progress" in fighting terrorism. Consequently, some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that none turned out to be terrorists . ..."
"... Long before he became FBI Director, serious questions existed about Mueller's role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI's illicit deals with mobster Whitey Bulger and other "top echelon" informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang. ..."
"... Current media applause omits the fact that former FBI Director Mueller was the top official in charge of the Anthrax terror fiasco investigation into those 2001 murders , which targeted an innocent man (Steven Hatfil l) whose lawsuit eventually forced the FBI to pay $5 million in compensation. Mueller's FBI was also severely criticized by Department of Justice Inspector Generals finding the FBI overstepped the law improperly serving hundreds of thousands of "national security letters" to obtain private (and irrelevant) metadata on citizens, and for infiltrating nonviolent anti-war groups under the guise of investigating "terrorism." ..."
"... Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room, both Comey and Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to renew certification of a "state of emergency." ..."
"... Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all" surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities. ..."
"... Neither Comey nor Mueller -- who are reported to be " joined at the hip " -- deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like "G-men" with reputations for principled integrity, the two close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence. ..."
"... It seems clear that based on his history and close "partnership" with Comey, called "one of the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen," Mueller was chosen as Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want him to do. ..."
"... Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out against torture. He didn't speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell the truth about 9/11. He is just "their man." ..."
"... The anthrax attacks of 2001 were the double-tap to follow the events of 9/11, and were crucial to the successful passage of the Patriot Act. ..."
"... Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell. ..."
"... A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush. ..."
"... Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney? ..."
"... Robert Mueller is just doing what he's always done: cover up for the CIA. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller Wednesday implied that he would have indicted Donald Trump if
he could have, resurrecting his saint-like status among Democrats who will now likely go for
impeachment. But who is the real Bob Mueller?, asked ex-FBI official Coleen Rowley on June 6,
2017.
By Coleen Rowley Special to Consortium News June 6, 2017
Mainstream commentators display amnesia when they
describe former FBI Directors Robert Mueller and James Comey as stellar and credible law
enforcement figures. Perhaps if they included J. Edgar Hoover, such fulsome praise could be put
into proper perspective.
Although these Hoover successors, now occupying center stage in the investigation of
President Trump, have been hailed for their impeccable character by much of Official
Washington, the truth is, as top law enforcement officials of the George W. Bush Administration
(Mueller as FBI Director and James Comey as Deputy Attorney General), both presided over
post-9/11 cover-ups and secret abuses of the Constitution, enabled Bush-Cheney fabrications
used to launch wrongful wars, and exhibited plain vanilla incompetence.
TIME Magazine would probably have not called my own disclosures a " bombshell memo
" to the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry in May 2002 if it had not been for Mueller's
having so misled everyone after 9/11. Although he bore no personal responsibility for
intelligence failures before the attack, since he only became FBI Director a week before,
Mueller denied or downplayed the significance of warnings that had poured in yet were all
ignored or mishandled during the Spring and Summer of 2001.
Bush Administration officials had circled the wagons and refused to publicly own up to what
the 9/11 Commission eventually concluded, "that the system had been blinking red
." Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness termed
"
criminal negligence " in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely
manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.)
Worse, Bush and Cheney used that post 9/11 period of obfuscation to "roll out" their
misbegotten "war on terror," which only served to
exponentially increase worldwide terrorism .
Unfulfilled Promise
I wanted to believe Director Mueller when he expressed some regret in our personal meeting
the night before we both testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee. He told me he was seeking
improvements and that I should not hesitate to contact him if I ever witnessed a similar
situation to what was behind the FBI's pre 9/11 failures.
Some of the original detainees jailed at the Guantanamo Bay prison, as put on display by the
U.S. military.
A few months later, when it appeared he was acceding to Bush-Cheney's ginning up
intelligence to launch the unjustified, counterproductive and illegal war on Iraq, I took
Mueller up on his offer,
emailing him my concerns in late February 2003. Mueller knew, for instance, that Vice
President Dick Cheney's claims connecting 9/11 to Iraq were bogus yet he remained quiet. He
also never responded to my email.
Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political pressures. In the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Mueller directed the " post 9/11 round-up " of about 1,000
immigrants who mostly happened to be in the wrong place (the New York City area) at the wrong
time. FBI Headquarters encouraged more and more detentions for what seemed to be essentially
P.R. purposes. Field offices were required to report daily the number of detentions in order to
supply grist for FBI press releases about FBI "progress" in fighting terrorism. Consequently,
some of the detainees were brutalized and jailed for up to a year despite the fact that
none turned out to be terrorists .
A History of Failure
Long before he became FBI Director, serious
questions existed about Mueller's role as Acting U.S. Attorney in Boston in effectively
enabling decades of corruption and covering up of the FBI's illicit deals with mobster Whitey
Bulger and other "top echelon" informants who committed numerous murders and crimes. When the
truth was finally uncovered through intrepid investigative reporting and persistent, honest
judges, U.S. taxpayers footed a $100 million court award to the four men framed for murders
committed by (the FBI-operated) Bulger gang.
For his part, Deputy Attorney General James Comey
, too, went along with the abuses of Bush and Cheney after 9/11 and signed off on a number of
highly illegal programs including warrantless surveillance of Americans and
torture of captives . Comey also defended the Bush Administration's three-year-long
detention of an American citizen without charges or right to counsel.
Up to the March 2004 night in Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room, both Comey and
Mueller were complicit with implementing a form of martial law, perpetrated via secret Office
of Legal Counsel memos mainly written by John Yoo and predicated upon Yoo's singular theories
of absolute "imperial" or "war presidency" powers, and requiring Ashcroft every 90 days to
renew certification of a "state of emergency."
The Comey/Mueller Myth
What's not well understood is that Comey's and Mueller's joint intervention to stop Bush's
men from forcing the sick Attorney General to sign the certification that night was a
short-lived moment. A few days later, they all simply went back to the drawing board to draft
new legal loopholes to continue the same (unconstitutional) surveillance of
Americans.
The mythology of this episode, repeated endlessly throughout the press, is that Comey and
Mueller did something significant and lasting in that hospital room. They didn't. Only the
legal rationale for their unconstitutional actions was tweaked.
Mueller was even okay with the CIA conducting torture programs after his own
agents warned against participation. Agents were simply instructed not to document such
torture, and any "war crimes files" were made to disappear. Not only did "collect it all"
surveillance and torture programs continue, but Mueller's (and then Comey's) FBI later worked
to prosecute NSA and CIA whistleblowers who revealed these illegalities.
Neither Comey nor Mueller -- who are reported to be "
joined at the hip " -- deserve their current lionization among politicians and mainstream
media. Instead of Jimmy Stewart-like "G-men" with reputations for principled integrity, the two
close confidants and collaborators merely proved themselves, along with former CIA Director
George "Slam Dunk" Tenet, reliably politicized sycophants, enmeshing themselves in a series of
wrongful abuses of power along with official incompetence.
It seems clear that based on his history and close "partnership" with Comey, called "one of
the closest working relationships the top ranks of the Justice Department have ever seen,"
Mueller was chosen as
Special Counsel not because he has integrity but because he will do what the powerful want
him to do.
Mueller didn't speak the truth about a war he knew to be unjustified. He didn't speak out
against torture. He didn't speak out against unconstitutional surveillance. And he didn't tell
the truth about 9/11. He is just "their man."
Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI special agent and division legal counsel whose May 2002 memo to
then-FBI Director Robert Mueller exposed some of the FBI's pre-9/11 failures, was named one of
TIME magazine's "Persons of the Year" in 2002. Her 2003 letter to Robert Mueller in opposition
to launching the Iraq War is
archived in full text on the NYT and her 2013 op-ed entitled " Questions for
the FBI Nominee " was published on the day of James Comey's confirmation hearing. This
piece will also be cross-posted on Rowley's Huffington Post page.)
The anthrax attacks of 2001 were the double-tap to follow the events of 9/11, and were
crucial to the successful passage of the Patriot Act. The Patriot Act effectively cancelled
the privacy protections of the U.S. Constitution, and reversed the onus of a presumption of
innocence in U.S. legal practice. The failure of the FBI, under the leadership of Mueller, to
provide or uncover an adequate explanation for the anthrax attacks is a signature black mark
in the FBI's history, if not the history of the republic.
Raymond Comeau , May 30, 2019 at 14:14
Mueller is another spook dredged up from the bowels of Hell, in order to fool the honest
citizens and ensure Deep State and its useful idiots continue on their way to Oblivion.
Bob In Portland , May 30, 2019 at 12:40
Some history: Robert Swan Mueller III married his childhood sweetheart Ann Cabell Standish
in 1966, three years after the JFK assassination. Her grandfather, Charles Cabell, was second
in command at the CIA during the Bay of Pigs failure and was fired, along with Allen Dulles
and Richard Bissell, for lying to him about the mission, which had been doomed to failure
before its start. Her great uncle, Earle Cabell Jr. was the mayor of Dallas when it hosted
the JFK assassination in 1963. Documents declassified in the last few years revealed that
Earle Cabell was himself a "CIA asset" as well. Before anyone thinks that Mueller married
into the CIA, his own great uncle was the aforementioned Richard Bissell.
A closer review, here, shows Mueller's career covering up CIA criminal activities, to
include Pan Am 103, the prosecution of Manuel Noriega, BCCI, 9/11 et al. He was promoted to
handle those cases by former CIA Director GHW Bush. A week before 9/11 he took over as
Director of the FBI, appointed by the son of the CIA Director, George W Bush.
Another key player in our current political show is William Barr. While Barr was getting
his law degree he was employed by the CIA. Surprise surprise. One of the main figures in
Russiagate is Paul Manafort, whose career consists of him working with world leaders who were
either put into power by the CIA, kept in power by the CIA, removed from power by the CIA or
murdered by the CIA. It should not be surprising to anyone willing to look that the current
maneuvering appears to many to be an attempt to remove Trump from office.
Joseph Misfud, a former ambassador for Malta, has been identified in Mueller's report as a
Russian agent without proof. In fact, Misfud's career and allegiance has been to western
intelligence. Mueller offers no proof to the contrary. But if in fact Misfud is an agent of
Russia shouldn't he have made an attempt to interview him. Or interview Assange, who actually
received the information? Or interview Craig Murray who claims to know about how the
information was transferred from the DNC to Wikileaks? Or to William Binney?
Robert Mueller is just doing what he's always done: cover up for the CIA.
Many Thanks Bob In Portland. I was an 18 year old soldier in the 101st. Airborne on alert
for the invasion of Cuba so I share you lifetime of frustration.
To the extent that there is "Continuity In Government", this is it. Great research and
information
Mueller's proven himself to be just another mouthpiece for power and the "respected"
establishment. He's been championing the very dangerous lie that the Kremlin interfered in
the '16 election, even though there has never been one piece of credible evidence proving
that Moscow did any such thing.
As this canard gets repeated over and over it's sinking in to the public consciousness
that the Putin administration is something to be feared.
exiled off mainstreet , May 30, 2019 at 00:00
This reveals the deplorable record of Mueller and Comey as lackeys for a corrupt
authoritarian regime.
Doggrotter , May 29, 2019 at 23:50
Can I share this article I just found. I typed into google "is Mueller a psychopath?" and
up popped this. I know next to nothing about the site or author. Will explore a bit.
Coleen. I can't thank you enough for the article. So many abuses to the system. Yet" St
Muller this and Saint Muller that". They are the kind of people that nobody with a right
would approach with barge pole.
Muller and Comie are the rabid rottweilers of the State, just hidden away behind expensive
suits and effected gravitas. They need to be chained up in their cages to keep the world
safe.
Treatment of Julian Assange.
Entrapment of hapless young men in terrorist stings and their incarceration.
The malicious and failed prosecution of Nor Salman.
Taking illegally obtained surveillance
To Crown it all "Parallel Construction" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_construction
Andrew Nichols , May 29, 2019 at 22:47
Failures to read, share or act upon important intelligence, which a FBI agent witness
termed "criminal negligence" in later trial testimony, were therefore not fixed in a timely
manner. (Some failures were never fixed at all.) Deliberate failures
Going back, to the other guy, again would you trust him knowing that he is and has been so
close to Comey as it's being tolk and as it's coming out, be it EVER so slow, but as we go
deeper into this mess, ALL of these "OUTSTANDING Federal Law Officers", their histories WILL,
or at the very least START to show!"
Tom , May 29, 2019 at 21:20
Isn't this the same Robert Mueller who prosecuted Lyndon LaRouche in the late
eighties?
robert , June 19, 2017 at 20:43
Colleen's article or op ed here seems to be a straight forward, fact based account that
the mainstream media would do well to study and consider [of course they generally wouldnt].
I wonder what all the links she has posted in support show?
I am glad to say I voted for Jill Stein last Nov. She has proven to be too decent for
America, I suppose.
If Americans expected or wanted something better, why did 40% or so last Nov. sit back and
refuse to vote, and those that did vote vote for obvious bums like Trump and Hilary? ?
Rob Roy , May 30, 2019 at 14:41
Thanks, robert, your letter says exactly what I would write. It's not that good people
don't run for office, but the Powers That Be will not allow them to get air time and the MSM
goes along with the exclusion, in fact, strongly supports it. War is the business of the USA
and must not be stopped. Tulsi Gabbard is the one candidate that opposes war she will be
shoved aside, destroyed by lies and ignored by the MSM. I have come to realize Americans are
stupid politically and it's not going to stop. It's not just Americans people in Europe have
good candidates, but, like here, those good candidates will not be allowed to win important
positions. Corbyn comes to mind.
I used to be suggested this website by means of my cousin.
I am not certain whether this post is written through him as no one else realize such
designated about my trouble.
You are wonderful! Thanks!
Well, Mr. Comey, should be felling rather safe about now. Why, [you ask] well he is in
GOOD hands, his old friend is going to be working the case. they both were Big Shots in the
FBI and in the Justice Department. And, just like in any other "secret" unit or outfit, those
who are or were in will ALL-WAYS be IN! Mr. Comey, came off as being VERY confident in his
questioning, what is it that he is so confident about?
In a few weeks their could be a very Special hearing, and Mr. Comey will be on the block, but
yet he is or was very comfortable during the questioning on the other day. I, do think, that
this is going to be another "white wash" of the facts, and the Left, then walks away saying
."See, we knew that the GOP was doing this and or that". Mr. Comey and his old time friend
need to be watched!
Hate to say such a thing ..Both of these men, as [honest as they have been portrayed to
be], getting them both together, one "against" the other, all that means is "look, were
BROTHERS together, were both Good Guys, were both former FBI, were of that brotherhood".
Folk's that's something, that is just about as thick as Blood, visa Water. If, someone is NOT
watching, President Trump, will be in some serious crap. Would you, want to talk to Comey
about ANYTHING, knowing that he is so political, and can "turn on a dime"?. Going back, to
the other guy, again would you trust him knowing that he is and has been so close to Comey as
it's being tolk and as it's coming out, be it EVER so slow, but as we go deeper into this
mess, ALL of these "OUTSTANDING Federal Law Officers", their histories WILL, or at the very
least START to show!"
rm , June 8, 2017 at 05:24
Mueller was 911 'speed of deceit' cover-up man.
All he had to do was follow the forensics.
A safe pair of hands,
mike k , June 8, 2017 at 12:25
Voting in the US is a scam to keep people under control, and stupid. People who have an
addiction to voting remind of the old joke about the guy who was informed that the wheel of
fortune game he was losing his money on was rigged.
Asked why he continued to play the
crooked wheel, he replied, :Because it's the only game in town." <img alt=''
src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2dc772f58128a9b167ed2c99e9913eb1?s=60&d=identicon&r=pg'
srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/2dc772f58128a9b167ed2c99e9913eb1?s=120&d=identicon&r=pg
2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />
Michael Morrissey , June 7, 2017 at 12:51
Mythical heroes and real criminals. I know that Coleen was much more the hero herself in
trying to do her job at the FBI (see her Wiki) and now -- much more so -- as an activist and
member (along with Ray McGovern et al.) of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity,
but
Well, I respect her a lot, and I would not like to offend her, but I would love to see how
she would react in a detailed discussion of what is actually known about 9/11 (which for me
is collected in the work of David Ray Griffin). Ditto for Ray McGovern, though I believe he
is somewhat more receptive to what let's call for lack of a better term the "inside job"
theory. (I hope we are past the notion that the govt's laughable conspiracy theory is in any
respect less "speculative" than the solid presentation of facts and argumentation by David
Griffin -- whose work is of course based on that of many others.)
It won't happen, I know. We will all go to our graves, and maybe our children and
grandchildren will too, before the NYT or its equivalent says, "Yes, the US govt perpetrated
9/11 in order to scare the crap out of us and make us do everything we have done since."
Still, Coleen Rowley and Ray McGovern and a few more are way, way ahead of the NYT, their
former employers, and I suppose the majority of the US population, and I am glad to be
counted as among their supporters and admirers.
I think he will, I am not kidding . I really believe we are going to see some unbelievably
nasty, nasty knives out full out war ., go back to that speech he gave on the Inauguration
Day and HOW VERY INAPPROPRIATE it was viewed by all the "in" crowd sitting there, all the
"in" group, all the Bohemian Grovers like Obama was (an attendee he was, already groomed to
be President years before, so says Zachary King the ex-high Satanist priest who was there
yearly and ran into him and was told his future .) and so many of the others CFR, Trilateral
Commission etc. part of the Luciferian loony globalist creeps who truly believe they run the
show and watch out if you are not on their "team" and don't tell me when you watched that --
that there was no doubt Trump knew he was throwing it right at them, he knows who and what
they are–many on here do too from the comments I have seen –I just don't think
Trump got the fact then of how well they have the corporate media totally in the bag and how
even with a blatant lie like "Russia did it", that any idiot knows is bs, they will keep on
going and going, I think that threw him a good bit but if that Inauguration speech is not
enough of a signal that he will go to war here shortly–How about this? -- Secretary of
State Tillerson in the last day or so saying he is going forward with making things better
with Russia? If Trump was on board now believing he could make peace with the Deep Staters
–No way that statement is made by Tillerson, that is a statement of "back at ya" No,
Trump is a guy who "gets even" and he is not going to roll for them, he may head fake that
way, but he doesn't roll that way, he gets even .and why? Just because LOL, because literally
his Father growing up you to say "You're the King" and he is that guy lol this is going to go
nuclear between him and the Obama/Bush/Deep Staters .He is still getting a feel for what is
up 6 months in, I think he now basically has the picture that regardless of what he does
they, the Deep State and the corporate media and the loony left that is clueless but buys
into what they are fed, plan to skin him alive, pour salt on him, and hang him out as a
trophy -- warning any future non-insider to get their message THIS IS WHAT WE DO TO
OUTSIDERS! -- much like all future insiders got their message when JFK was shot down by them
like a dog in the street and a "lone nut" was the laughable patsy, no one believes that err
except the NYTs lol .Trump now knows there is NO MERCY coming his way, none nada, that this
is bloodsport, why do you think he is yelling at Sessions? Sessions–what a horrible
choice that was and Trump knows it now decided to recuse himself out of the war lol the
"ethics" don't you know and brought in the guy as number 2 who put a hatchet in Trump's back
bringing in the cleaner -- Mueller -- Mueller the professional hatchet man who had no problem
screwing the country as to 911, "joined at the hip" to Comey the Deep State stooge, intends
to seek out anything possible to gut and clean Trump for dinner (check out the "team" Mueller
has in place–as if going after Al Capone in a case where everyone knows there is
nothing "there" as to Russian "collusion" by Trump -- they are planning to roll Trump so
incredibly badly–no way Trump doesn't know this now thus the screaming at Sessions who
now, having rolled over with his "recusal" LOL , offers to resign like that will reverse the
damage he's done .) and destroy him completely, taxes, investments, businesses–Trump's
entire life will be microscoped for anything, ANYTHING, they can hang on him and every lying
disgruntled ex-employee and adversary will be heard from, amplified, and leaked to the
globalist corporate media that loathes him–all of which will have nothing to do with
the "Russia" collusion lie that Podesta's 2015 emails show he came up with to attack Trump bc
he was sanely suggesting that not having a war with Russia was a good idea .If you look at
Trump's history, again, he IS NOT, definitely NOT, a nice guy and he has played in the nasty,
nasty league of the big money chase almost all his life and he is, do not forget, a
billionaire several times over who has his own private security force around him at all times
and, despite what the media portrays, he has many, many allies .The country will never be the
same again by the time this is "over"–if it ever really ends fireworks are coming
beyond our imagination Trump is not going to limp off into the night and they are not going
to let him even if he wanted to he is a cornered Wolverine get some popcorn this is going to
be a wild ride .
Dave P. , June 8, 2017 at 12:31
Tomk: Well done, your analysis is breathtaking. I had flashes in my mind of some of these
things coming. I hope this dirty business of Clinton/Bush/Obama also gets aired out in Public
View, and the Whole World to look at. It blows my mind watching how "The Deep State" is going
after Trump – for almost a year now – who was duly elected President by the U.S.
Citizens. Their only vendetta against him is that he wanted to get along with Russia. A child
can tell that this whole "Russia Gate" is utterly a Fabrication by the Ruling Establishment.
Going on for a year now, these Evil Forces have turned the Country into almost a Lunatic
Asylum.
Obama is all over hatching new plots. He was with Merkel, and a few days back seen with
Justin Trudeau. What a useful tool of the Ruling Establishment Obama is. I bet Trump is
watching all this. He is not that naive as some people think of him . It seems like, either
he is going to submit and leave the scene with guarantees of not bothering him afterwards. or
He is going to fight a fight not seen before in U.S. History. It is hard to tell how it will
end.
Sleepless In Mars , June 7, 2017 at 07:31
"Let me come back again to the waking state. I have no choice but to consider it a
phenomenon of interference. Not only does the mind display, in this state, a strange tendency
to lose its bearings (as evidenced by the slips and mistakes the secrets of which are just
beginning to be revealed to us), but, what is more, it does not appear that, when the mind is
functioning normally, it really responds to anything but the suggestions which come to it
from the depths of that dark night to which I commend it." Agent Breton
The White House wants to silence the media and press. They've lost their bearings. The OCB
case is expanding. McPike won't let go. We won't be fooled again.
Pft , June 7, 2017 at 01:03
Baghdad Bob was more credible and believable than anyone in the MSM today. Its loony
tunes. Maybe that Anthrax did the trick and scares them into submission.
Drew Hunkins , June 6, 2017 at 23:20
Beyond absurdity that an ostensible hustler who ran cover for years for Boston's
ultra-violent Winter Hill Gang now has the authority to overturn the election of the
president of the United States. (Albeit a president as flawed as he is, and NOT due to
anything involving "RUSSIA!")
Tomk , June 6, 2017 at 21:51
Mueller the hatchet man for the Deep State (911 was ok by him it seems, no need to
investigate .) has one purpose and that is to take out Trump as his favorable statements as
to ending the new Cold War with Russia made him an enemy of those who believe they run the
country and who look to profit incredibly by the money they can make from an "enemy" like
Russia–much better than the "terrorism" one they created for us .Appointing Sessions AG
was a really terrible mistake by Trump given his foreseeable recusal on the most important
issue facing Trump (the phony "Russia did it" Trojan Horse to get a Mueller to go fishing to
find, or create, ANYTHING to get rid of him .) Sessions is a loser all around igniting a new
war on drugs – an incredibly unpopular issue Trump did not even run on and although the
cries of "Racist" might be unfair Sessions said some stupid "jokes" that also should have
sidelined him given all the enemies Trump knew he had coming in and what he needed at
AG–an unimpeachable ally .Trump has to know what is up and it is not his nature to sit
back and be harpooned, which is what his enemies do plan ., so this will be a fascinating
year to see what he does to stop them from doing him Don't forget Trump is not a particularly
nice guy and given he is getting some feel for what he is dealing with, and the incredible
gravity of what he is up against, I guarantee we will see some moves coming in response to
his enemies that we have never seen, or had anyone even consider, before .
When gangsters are in control, endless wars slaughter millions of souls
And countries are destroyed by the hit men of the gangster ghouls
The unethical money changers finance their dirty depredations
And corporate cannibals profit from the bloody confrontations
Government by gangsters is now "the rule of law"
And "justice" is in the hands of criminals and outlaws
The language is twisted and debased
To suit these evil demons of the "human race"
Fancy titles and Houses of ill repute
Is where these villains consort and debut
Making "laws" to screw the masses
Yet, people continue to vote for these asses
If there really was "law and order"
These gangsters would be charged with genocide and murder
Instead these war criminals parade on the world stage
When they should be in a big enormous prison cage
[read more at link below] http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2017/01/when-gangsters-are-in-control.html
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 16:14
And President Woodrow Wilson being blackmailed to the tune of $40,000.00 over some love
letters he had sent to a colleague's wife. Mr. Samuel Untermeyer agreed to pay the blackmail
money in return for Wilson appointing Judge Louis Brandeis to the Supreme Court, which he
did.
"Justice Brandeis volunteered his opinion to President Wilson that the sinking of the S.S.
Sussex by a German submarine in the English Channel with the loss of lives of United States
citizens justified the declaration of war against Germany by the United States. Relying to a
great extent upon the legal opinion of Justice Brandeis, President Wilson addressed both
houses of Congress on April 2, 1917. He appealed to Congress to declare war against Germany
and they did on April 7, 1917."
Blackmail and threats still work. Comey always strikes me as being very matter-of-fact and
cavalier in his answers, as if nothing could ever touch him. I mean, even I would have known
not to let Clinton off. He acts as if a mafia-type organization has got his back and he
doesn't have to worry, which is probably the case.
mike k , June 6, 2017 at 17:50
Yes. The chance of the lying, corrupt cowards "representing" us really calling Comey out
on his record are nil. And Trump started a fight with the "intelligence" guys that he now
knows he can't finish, so his lawyers will treat Comey very carefully. (In my fantasy Trump's
lawyers tear Comey apart, and bring up all his rotten record, reducing him to a blubbering
mess ..) Yes I have a fantasy life, but I try not to get it mixed up too much with our
so-called reality.
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 20:22
mike k – an interesting thing about that Woodrow Wilson blackmailing (in my above
post) is that these guys, with the blackmail knowledge in hand, bankrolled and helped Wilson
get into the White House, and then they blackmailed him AFTER he got there. Of course, this
way they ensured that they had their man all sewn up. They got him there, he owed them, and
they had the damning information. They and they alone end up owning you.
Trump was bankrolled by a few powerful people. I just wonder if the same thing isn't
happening with Trump, some old pictures. Whatever it is, I'm quite sure something
happened.
Joe Tedesky , June 6, 2017 at 22:57
In our family we have a lawyer (now retired) who once worked under Peter Rodino during the
Watergate Hearings. I'll never forget how when I asked my cousin if Nixon would serve time,
she said never, because all the politicians who stood in judgement of Nixon had their own
skeletons in the closet to hide. D.C. is a nest of degenerates, and charlatan fraudsters, but
history proves that this is nothing original. The best 'we the people' can hope for, is when
these masters and mistresses of ours decide it is time to feed us, because maybe they need
our votes. Who knows? Yes blackmail will insure a trustworthy employee every time. John
Lennon had it right, everybody's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey.
evelync , June 6, 2017 at 16:13
sorry, May 2002 not 2001 (above)
evelync , June 6, 2017 at 14:44
I am so grateful to Colleen Rowley who has been my heroine, too, since 2001 when she
publicly felt, thank goodness, that she must speak out. Rowley stood up with courage, spunk,
honor, strength of character, respect for the truth, fearless determination to stand alone,
if necessary, in defiance of corruption and lies. Her loyalty was to truth, the constitution
and the people of this country, most of whom toil under challenging circumstances, get sent
to trumped up wars, get ripped off by big banks and after a lifetime of work are still
struggling. Rowley gives us strength and hope that there's something better.
I suspect Colleen Rowley unlike some of the show boaters is herself a modest person and is
just doing what's "necessary" and it's part of who she is.
Thank you, Colleen. I hate being confused by these people who lie to us and serve their
own self interests instead of the public interest.
And how else would we know?
Some of them are pretty good at taking credit and are not as obviously horrific to us as,
say, a Dick Cheney or a Donald Rumsfeld who seem to be more cartoonish characters than
people.
Thank you.
Oz , June 6, 2017 at 14:39
It should also be noted that Mueller was a key figure during the 1980s in the government's
campaign to frame and silence Lyndon LaRouche and his movement, a campaign which former AG
Ramsey Clark described as the most appalling campaign of its sort that he had seen (and
combatting such campaigns is his specialty.)
F. G. Sanford , June 6, 2017 at 14:00
Jedgar, as comedienne Lily Tomlin called him, was a career blackmailer, eavesdropper,
extortionist and enabler of organized crime dynasties. It's not a coincidence that, in her
comedic vehicle as a telephone operator, her routine suggested "listening in" as an
extracurricular activity perhaps not disdained by Jedgar himself. Sure, a warrant was needed
to use evidence gained by wiretapping in a court of law. But if the motive was blackmail, who
needs a warrant? Apparently, this reality is lost on the American public. We should certainly
realize that every phone conversation is now retrievable by electronic means. All the FISA
Court mumbo jumbo and its purported "checks and balances" is a farce designed to create a
veneer of legitimacy. What does anybody think Jedgar bothered getting a warrant to bug Martin
Luther King – then subsequently revealed the playbacks and suggested that King commit
suicide? Anyone who has spent even a modicum of time looking onto the fraudulent Warren
Commission Report must realize that Jedgar was completely complicit. On the ballistics
evidence alone, he could have blown the case wide open. At best, he was a criminal
coconspirator in a massive coverup. At worst, he ranks among the most vile traitors in our
nation's history. This, then, is the legacy of the organization to which the two
coconspirators in the present article appertain. On November 22, 1963, our government was
hijacked by "deep state" militarists, and a system of permanent war economy was installed. We
have descended deeper into that abyss with each passing year. The elected government now
serves as a mere facade. I'd suggest that doubters read Vince Salandria's book, especially
the recently added chapter on Ruth and Michael Paine at the end. Check the contents –
you'll find it. It's free online, and can be accessed from several internet addresses. Unless
this sentinel crime is addressed, there is no hope for American democracy. We're done.
ratical . org/FalseMystery
ratical . org/falsemystery
ratical . org/FM
ratical . org/fm
Take out the spaces on either side of the dots to use the links. And, I'd advise, don't be
fooled by "leaks" which bolster the "deep state" agenda, even if they arrest the leaker.
The Postal service states it photographs every piece of mail.
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:26
F.G. Sanford – thank you for the links. This is going to be excellent reading. That
Vince Salandria is quite the guy:
"Only by the war production of World War II were we brought out of the great depression.
It was not difficult to discern that we were artfully thrust into the war. I can recall that
at the time of Pearl Harbor I was in the 8th grade of Vare Junior High School in
Philadelphia. On December 8, 1941, in my math class, our teacher, Miss Wogan, suggested that
rather than do our math we should discuss current events.
I went to the front of the classroom and informed my classmates that I could not accept as
plausible President Roosevelt's assertion that the attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise,
sneak attack. I pointed out that all of us had known for months about the tension between the
U.S. and Japan. I asked how, in light of those months of crisis and tautly strained relations
between the two countries, could the battleships at Pearl Harbor have been lined up so
closely together, presenting perfect targets for the Japanese? How could the planes I saw in
the newspapers burning on our airfields have been positioned wing-tip to wing-tip?
I reminded the class that President Roosevelt had promised that he would not send our
troops into a foreign war. I then offered my conclusion that inviting the Pearl Harbor attack
was President Roosevelt's duplicitous device to eliminate the powerful neutralist sentiment
in our country while thrusting us into the war."
Very smart for Grade 8!
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 15:41
"On November 23, 1963 I discussed the assassination with my then brother-in-law, Harold
Feldman. I told him that we should keep our eyes focused on what if anything would happen to
the suspected assassin that weekend. I said that if the suspect was killed during the
weekend, then we would have to consider Oswald's role to be that of a possible intelligence
agent and patsy. I told him if such happened, the assassination would have to be considered
as the work of the very center of U.S. power. [ ]
When Oswald was served up on camera as disposable Dealey Plaza flotsam and jetsam and was
killed by Jack Ruby I saw a subtle signal of a high level conspiracy. There is every reason
to think that intelligence agencies, when they choose a killer to dispose of a patsy, make
that choice by exercising the same degree of care that they employ in selecting the patsy.
Their choice of Jack Ruby much later would – by providing a fall-back position for the
government – serve the interests of the assassins. As the Warren Report would unravel,
a deceased Ruby's past connections to the Mafia produced a false candidate for governmental
apologists to designate as the power behind the killing.
Immediately following the assassination I began to collect news items about Lee Harvey
Oswald. A pattern began to emerge. Oswald's alleged defection to the Soviets, his alleged
Castro leanings as the sole member of a Fair Play for Cuba chapter in New Orleans, his posing
with a rifle and a Trotskyist newspaper, his writings to the Communist Party USA, his study
of the Russian language while in the Marine Corps, told me that he was not a genuine leftist,
but rather was a U.S. intelligence agent."
Oswald was set up from the get-go. Poor kid, he didn't realize he was playing with
fire.
The Kennedy assassination, 9/11, the other false flags, color revolutions, coups are all
the work of those who possess a psychopathic mind.
Until one understands that the US government is a criminal enterprise, and that everyone
involved in it is a criminal, with extremely few exceptions – you will not understand
what goes on there. The same holds true for the main stream media, these are criminal, lying
propaganda outlets for the rich and powerful who own them. Also the US Military is a vicious
criminal enterprise pure and simple.
If you are inclined to cut any of these actors any slack whatever, and forget who they
really are, you will simply become a victim of their lies and criminal activities. Regardless
of the unceasing barrage of positive images and ideas we are soaked in from childhood, we
need to constantly remind ourselves of who these evil people really are, and the horrendous
crimes they are responsible for. The idea that James Comey, the head of the secret police is
some kind of role model is outrageous. This man deserves to be imprisoned for the rest of his
life.
Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 13:57
mike K : Excellent. Complete rendering of Truth.
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 14:00
mike k – yep, it truly is a den of vipers and thieves, a well-oiled machine at this
point. Many are ignorant of this fact, and many are willing to turn a blind eye so long as
they get what they want.
"Hell is empty and all the devils are here."
Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 15:50
The irony of all this is that America could be a great positive force for good and
beneficial change on the planet. It's location, between two great Oceans, it's physical
beauty, and it's resources – America has it all. There is nothing like America on this
Planet. [It makes me feel sad about American Indians, who lost it all during the last three
or four centuries]. And now, for the last five decades or so, all the best and the brightest
from top schools in India, now China, Eastern Europe, and elsewhere (and Iran too !) come to
U.S. Universities, and work here. One of the major engines of our high tech sector boom
– and leadership in the World – has been due to this foreign born talent. And
this talent has contributed a lot in other sectors as well.
And from all what I have read, after the collapse of Communism, the World was and is
willing to accept American leadership. If you watch Putin's speeches at Valdai International
Discussion Club, he acknowledges America's leadership, but not complete subservience to
U.S.
Would big countries and ancient civilizations like China and India, or big countries like
Brazil, South Africa agree to be completely subservient to U.S.? Should these countries (and
the other countries of the World) become U.S.'s vassal states. It is preposterous to think of
it. What happened to this idea of Freedom, which is drilled into masses here 24/7 by the
Media and the Ruling Establishment. As we want to live free, don't these countries would like
to live free.
And we are waging wars on the Nations to bring freedom and democracy – and American
values. What a hypocrisy?
And we are discussing about Comey and Mueller here! It is hard to comprehend to what lower
depths the country has sunk to.
Trump was not wrong when he was saying during the campaign that the whole place ( Washington)
is a swamp. The country was ready for a Populist. Unfortunately, Trump was not the right
one.
I do not have much hope that the upper echelons in this country will learn some wisdom to
change their course.
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 17:18
Dave P. – good points. I don't think Trump was the "perfect" one, but I think he
could have been the "right" one, had they laid off him, but he's had everything but the
kitchen sink thrown at him (the pussy hats, the Berkeley rioters, the media, the Democrats,
his own Republican Party). The Deep State has gone after him like crazy because they're
fighting for their very survival, and Trump was going to end it.
I think he WOULD have ended the wars, cut back on NATO, brought affordable healthcare,
enforced the border laws (without which you don't have a country, at least not for long),
brought jobs back from China/Asia, rebuilt infrastructure, and protected the citizens.
It appears people don't want that. Go figure.
Dave P. , June 6, 2017 at 17:40
backwardsevolution, I agree with you. I think Trump meant to do all these things you
mentioned. What I meant to say was that, he did not have any clue of what was to come. Trump
does not have any communication skills like Obama, and Clinton, and is not well read or any
thing like that. And I think that they – the Deep State – have a very thick
dossier on his business deals, and all that. I sometimes feel sorry for him – the guy
is caught in the nest of scorpions. When I watch him on TV sometimes, he seems like he is
scared, and will do any thing they will ask him to do. <img alt=''
src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ac6f9611bbc79c79ee101b1a19b95ed?s=60&d=identicon&r=pg'
srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/4ac6f9611bbc79c79ee101b1a19b95ed?s=120&d=identicon&r=pg
2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 19:41
Dave P. – re your "nest of scorpions" comment. Yes, I agree that Trump had no idea
what he'd be stepping into. We probably don't know the half of it. Could be death threats
against himself (or maybe his family) or blackmail. Something happened because all of a
sudden Trump and Tillerson both changed, seemingly overnight, and you're right, Trump has a
scared look in his eyes.
If a thick-skinned braggart like Trump can't go up against these guys, then who can?
<img alt=''
src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e8c9fa7352dc19c959f94ff2df0e0d95?s=60&d=identicon&r=pg'
srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/e8c9fa7352dc19c959f94ff2df0e0d95?s=120&d=identicon&r=pg
2x' class='avatar avatar-60 photo' height='60' width='60' />
I believe the "system" is totally corrupted. We are prisoners in a so-called
"democracy."
The Prisoners of the System
By Stephen J. Gray
The prisoners of the system thought they were free
After all, they lived in a "democracy?"
Every few years they were allowed to vote
Then they got punished by the winning lot
Oh well, at least the masses are allowed to go on holiday
At the airports they are patted down and groped in the name of security
Still, their governments were keeping them all safe
As they spy on them and all the human race.
Big Brother and Big Sister are now in charge
And Orwell's "1984" is now here and at large
Computers are monitored and cell phones too
Fridges are bugged and smart meters knew
I will very likely go to my grave with the strong suspicion that the alleged Christmas
Bomber (2010) in Portland, Oregon was a case of entrapment. Assuming that kid really did have
intentions of setting off a bomb, the FBI agents should have educated him as to why setting
off a bomb as a Christmas tree lighting ceremony was a very bad thing to do instead of going
through some ritual of simulations. Of course, the FBI agents claim they gave him chances to
back out, but I suspect he was like most teenagers who didn't want to be considered as
"chicken." – http://theweek.com/articles/488966/portland-bomb-plot-entrapment
backwardsevolution , June 6, 2017 at 13:41
Bill – using entrapment in order to move public opinion in a certain direction,
steer the herd, influence their thinking, allowing them then to engage in what they want
carried out. Sickening. Heat coming down on Israel a little too much? Just create an
incident, elicit sympathy, and the whole thing blows over.
To paraphrase Shakespeare: Age has not withered Coleen Rowley nor custom faded her
infinite courage.
Bill Bodden , June 6, 2017 at 12:22
Beyond ignoring politicized intelligence, Mueller bent to other political
pressures.
Bending to political and other pressures is one of the rules for "success" in Washington
and Wall Street. There must be very few people who have made it to the upper echelons butting
heads with the oligarchs running the show. Lewis Lapham, a national treasure of an essayist
and author, frequently skewered the "rules of success" and those who played by them.
Comey Slams Trump's FBI Probe: 'There Was No Coup, These Are Lies, Dumb Lies'
by
Tyler Durden
Tue, 05/28/2019 - 19:25
3
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While Trump's Attorney General William Barr oversees a probe into the origins of the
Trump-Russia investigation, in which the Obama-era intelligence community has been
accused of
gross violations of the law
- including
spying
and possible
entrapment
,
fired FBI Director James Comey has been on the defensive, claiming to have "no idea what
the heck" people like Barr are talking about in regards to allegations of malfeasance.
Comey's latest attempt to untarnish his image comes in the form of a Tuesday
afternoon op-ed in the
Washington
Post
,
responding to Thursday allegations by the President that Comey, former
acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page and former FBI agent
Peter Strock had "unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person."
"That's treason, Trump said at a White House event. "They couldn't win the election,
and that's what happened."
Trump's comments were backed by Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY), who said on Sunday that
statements by FBI agents investigating Trump sounded "an awful lot like a coup, and it
could well be treason."
Nonsense, insists Comey
- who writes of Trump in his op-ed: "
We
must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason
,
that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump.
We must
constantly return to the stubborn facts."
Comey continues: "
We investigated
. We didn't gather information
about the campaign's strategy.
We didn't "spy" on anyone's campaign
. We
investigated to see whether it was true that Americans associated with the campaign had
taken the Russians up on any offer of help."
The 'investigating' -
as we now know, included the FBI sending in
longtime spook Stefan Halper and an FBI agent posing as Halper's assistant, who gained
the trust of Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
under false pretenses.
Months
earlier, Papadopoulos had been
seeded with the rumor
that Russia had
negative information on Hillary Clinton by a self-described member of the Clinton
Foundation.
In the words of the CIA's former counterintelligence chief James Olson "
I'd
call that spying.
"
In the words of former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino,
"
It
was entrapment.
"
Comey continues in his op-ed:
By late October,
the investigators thought they had
probable cause to get a federal court order to conduct electronic surveillance of a
former Trump campaign adviser named Carter Page
. Page was no longer with
the campaign, but there was reason to believe he was acting as an agent of the
Russian government.
We
asked a federal judge for permission to surveil him
and then we did it, all
without revealing our work, despite the fact that it was late October and a leak
would have been very harmful to candidate Trump.
Worst deep-state conspiracy
ever
.
But wait,
the conspiracy idea gets dumber.
On
Oct. 28
, after agonizing deliberation over two terrible options, I concluded I
had no choice but to inform Congress that we had
reopened the Clinton email investigation
. I judged that hiding that fact -- after
having told Congress repeatedly and under oath that the case was finished -- would be
worse than telling Congress the truth. It was a decision
William
Barr praised
and Hillary Clinton blamed for her loss 11 days later. Strzok,
alleged architect of the treasonous plot to stop Trump, drafted the letter I sent
Congress.
And there's still more to the dumbness of the
conspiracy allegation.
At the center of the alleged FBI "corruption" we
hear so much about was the conclusion that Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lied to
internal investigators about a disclosure to the press in late October 2016.
McCabe
was fired over it
. And what was that disclosure? Some stop-Trump election-eve
screed? No.
McCabe authorized a disclosure that
revealed
the FBI was actively investigating the Clinton Foundation
, a disclosure
that was harmful to Clinton. -James Comey
Of course, McCabe reportedly authorized the self-serving leak in response to media
pressure that he had gone easy on Clinton - not to harm her campaign. Meanwhile
according to McCabe, a
senior Obama DOJ official called him
and was "very pissed off" that
the FBI was still pursuing the Clinton Foundation when the DOJ had considered the case
dormant.
In closing, Comey writes: "But go ahead, investigate the investigators, if you must.
When those investigations are over, they will find the work was done appropriately and
focused only on discerning the truth of very serious allegations. There was no
corruption. There was no treason. There was no attempted coup.
Those are lies,
and dumb lies at that. There were just good people trying to figure out what was true,
under unprecedented circumstances.
"
Funny
how
he
never
addresses
the
fact
that
candidate
Trump
was
never
informed
of
the
investigation
the
way
Senator
Feinstein
was
informed
that
she
had
a
spy
working
for
her.
But
then
again,
that
wouldn't
support
his
fabrication.
The
Election
of
Trump
has
pulled
the
curtain
back
on
The
Administrative
State
(deep
state)
...Greatly
points
to
the
fact
the
we
don't
have
a
"Justice"
system.
We
have
a
"Just
Us"
system.
I no
longer
trust
any
of
the
alphabet
Law
Enforcement
Agencies
including
the
IRS
or
the
Courts.
The
whole
thing
is
rigged
and
corrupt
beyond
repair.
Everybody
knows
this.Democrats
are
now
a
adversary
of
the
U.S.
and
like
any
enemy
of
the
U.S.
they
care
nothing
about
National
Security
and
Public
Safety..
Sure
sounds
like
desperation
to
me.
Good
thing
he
made
a
few
million
on
his
book
deal;
he
may
need
it
(though
I
continue
to
maintain
the
NO
ONE
involved
in
illegal
spying,
whether
or
not
evidence
supports
this
conclusion,
will
EVER
be
held
accountable
-
look
at
Hillary-clearly
a
Federal
criminal
walking
free).
But
go
ahead,
investigate
the
investigators,
if
you
must.
When
those
investigations
are
over,
they
will
find
the
work
was
done
appropriately
and
focused
only
on
discerning
the
truth
of
very
serious
allegations.
There
was
no
corruption.
There
was
no
treason.
There
was
no
attempted
coup.
Those
are
lies,
and
dumb
lies
at
that.
There
were
just
good
people
trying
to
figure
out
what
was
true,
under
unprecedented
circumstances.
"
And
then
Comey
would
be
charged
with
obstruction
for
trying
to
put
pressure
on
the
investigators
and
discourage
them
via
public
statements?
In
the
end
I'm
betting
that
Comey
dimes
out
everyone
that
he
can
in
order
to
get
a
better
deal.
If I
were
him
I'd
RUN
to
the
U.S.
Marshals
and
beg
for
WitSec
in
return
for
my
testimony.
This
Comey,
he
was
at
the
center
of
the
FBI
coverup
of
9-11,
and
the
subsequent
anthrax
mailings.
Comey
very
likely
was
involved
in
the
anthrax
mailings,
which
went
out
to
various
people
in
Washington
who
were
privately
questioning
the
official
narrative.
"... James Baker, meanwhile, told Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes last week that he's 'nervous' about the DOJ Inspector General's ongoing investigation into FBI/DOJ conduct surrounding the 2016 election. ..."
"... The Steele Dossier is the most amateurish piece of garbage they could think of. It was born out of some comments made by Trump during the debates when both he and his opponents started talking about hand size. ..."
"... When and if Barr and Horowitz get the information compiled, this is going to look worse than a school election of a class president for the 9th grade. Mostly testosterone and no where to put it. ..."
"... Ultimate CYA swamp creature. What ever happened to the "Comey Memo"? Has anybody actually seen it? Was it written on Windows? Can we see the metadata to prove when it was written? or was it penned on a bar napkin, and can be edited at any time. ..."
"... This guy is a lawyer. He owed a duty to inform the judge that his bosses were lying about the warrant. He owed a duty to counsel his bosses to make them stop what they were doing and consider if it was a violation. ..."
"... Unless he did those two things, he should go to jail and also be disbarred and also be subject to civil suits for those who had to pay attorney fees during the investigation. ..."
"... Why are they bending over backwards to protect the British, who were the real interferers in the American election. Clinton mob-CIA-MI6-Steele-Pablo Miller-Skripal-Steele-Clinton mob. ..."
"... Recall the Podesta email, re: DNC "hack": We're gonna make an example of this guy. So, they seem to know who it is that stole the emails, and they are going to "make an example" of him. And do recall the statement of Donna Brazile, who expressed fear for her own safety in the wake of the Seth Rich murder: "you don't know what these people are capable of". ..."
"... When listening to an account of an event on TV or written in a blurb on the internet, always ask, why do they want us to know this stuff? The answer is usually so they can hide what they are really doing. ..."
James Baker - the Obama FBI's top attorney (general counsel) said on Friday that he was skeptical about the Steele dossier, and
"concerned" about its veracity when the agency received it prior to the 2016 US election, according to the
Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross.
" It was more information that we viewed, that I viewed, skeptically from the outset , and I was concerned about it and
had a jaundiced eye, or looked at it with a jaundiced eye right from the outset," Baker told MSNBC 's Chuck Todd, adding "Steele
was and had been a source that we thought was reliable. He's reporting all this information. It looks alarming. We took it seriously,
but we tried to vet it. "
The dossier - a collection of memos compiled by an ex-British spy funded by Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and the DNC - was
used by the FBI to obtain a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page. Steele alleged
that Page provided the Trump campaign a Kremlin backchannel during the election.
Baker also told Todd that he thinks the FISA warrants against Page would have been granted without the dossier, and took a pregnant
pause when asked if the dossier was used to obtain FISA warrants on other people - saying "I don't think I should comment on that,
I'm not sure what else the government has confirmed," and adding " I don't want to confirm or deny anything about other potential
FISA applications. "
According to Fox News , an email chain exists which indicates that Comey told bureau subordinates that Brennan insisted on the
dossier's inclusion in the intelligence community assessment (ICA) on Russian interference . Also interesting is that the dossier
was referred to as "crown material" in the emails - a possible reference to the fact that Steele is a former British spy.
In a statement to Fox, however, a former CIA official "put the blame squarely on Comey ."
Comey, meanwhile, has attacked Attorney General William Barr for investigating him, tweeting on Friday "The AG should stop sliming
his own Department. If there are bad facts, show us, or search for them professionally and then tell us what you found."
Barr, has launched a
wide-ranging
investigation into FBI conduct during the 2016 election, making him public enemy #1 to the left . In a Friday interview with
Fox News , Barr said that the use of the Steele Dossier in the FISA warrant was a "very unusual situation," especially one "that
on its face had a number of clear mistakes and a somewhat jejue analysis. And to use that to conduct counterintelligence against
the American political campaign would be a strange development."
James Baker, meanwhile, told
Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes last week that he's 'nervous' about the DOJ Inspector General's ongoing investigation into FBI/DOJ
conduct surrounding the 2016 election.
Baker made clear that he wanted to speak "as openly as I possibly can" about the origin of the FBI's investigation into Donald
Trump - " to reassure the American people that it was done for lawful, legitimate reasons, and was apolitical, " according to the
Washington Examiner 's Jerry Dunleavy.
Things you will never read here, but hey, this is from the "failing" NYT so clearly fake news ...
Anti-money laundering investigators at Deutsche Bank flagged to bank executives multiple suspicious transactions on President
Donald Trump and Jared Kushner's accounts in 2016 and 2017.
Five current and former Deutsche Bank employees told the New York Times that after computer alerts flagged suspicious activity,
the specialists would put together recommendations urging bank executives to report the activity to the Treasury Department.
However, executives refused to act on the recommendations and kept the reports from the Department.
Tammy McFadden, an ex-Deutsche Bank employee who reviewed such alerts, said she found that money had been moved from Kushner
Companies to Russian individuals.
Breaking: We now know positively that there was Russian collusion. But it was via Obama, the Demonrats and their lapdog propaganda
apparatus the MSM, Trump was completely innocent. (Saul Alinsky-Always accuse your opponents of that for which you are guilty.
Your students, Obuttboy and Killiary studied you well, sensei)
They used a CIA spy asset, Stephen Halper, to feed Russian disinformation via the commie traitor Brennan head of Obuttboy's
CIA into their Demonrat Senate traitors who asked for an FBI investigation and that lying sack-0-**** Comey, head of the FBI,
complied using the so-called Steele "dossier" to obtain an illegal FISA warrant(s) to spy on members of the Trump team such as
Carter Page. Comey knew the dossier and the parallel constructed Brennan pack of lies were fiction yet put his signature on the
FISA application anyway blinded by his hatred of Trump and his girly-man nature. They used parallel construction to give an air
of credibility to the fictional script written by Glenn Simpson, head of Fusion GPS, employer of "hit by an ugly" stick Nellie
Ohr and paid to Hilliary and the DNC to smear Trump. The script was written in 2007.
Want more details? Please listen to Dan Bongino's Friday show and laugh your ******* head off at these spygate idiots now caught
naked as the tide recedes.
As Dan puts it so pithily, it's not James Bond, it's Bond, James. Its Gitmo for you morons and a Pulitzer to Dan Bongino. And
yet the MSM seems not to be aware of this? How can that be? Perhaps, as the commies like to say the MSM needs to be deconstructed,
literally!
never trust ANYTHING amerikans say ... I am the default example after we saved the World from Nazism - something the amerikan
rats are now funding and supporting - they betrayed me in 1945 and that traitor Gorby in 1986 with the NATO scam... and these
parameters will ALWAYS into the future determine our level of trust with America ..... it will be ZERO
This is like watching a movie director, producers and actors blame each other for a flop. They all thought it was a great
idea during pre-production, but after the critics take it apart and the public ignores it, they all turn on each other and say,
"I knew this was a piece of **** from the start!"
What gutless POS in DC! They don't mind leaking BS lies to the MSMutt's and taking bribes. DC is the biggest enemy the U.S.
has in the entire world. Scam Lie Cheat Steal and are total nerd pussies.
Yep.. Carter Page was such a "bad guy" that the FBI permitted him (and continues to do so) to walk around American and NEVER
be arrested.. Yep.. that was a pretty strong amount of evidence you guys had there for that FISA warrant.. And you never told
Trump either about this "Russian Mole" in his campaign as you're required to do (and as you did for the Chinese mole in Feinstein's
office)..
Glenn Simpson wrote the dossier with input from a Putin operative. They ran it through Steele simply to give it "credibility."
Wheel out the guillotine and get it lubed up. This is gonna be a busy summer. NOTHING can stop what is coming. Nothing.
I have read many articles from many sources including reading the Mueller Report as it was released to the public and tedious
it was.
I have come to the conclusions at this point that:
A. Many amateur actors not familiar with how to do counter intelligence were brought in by the Clinton campaign largely because
no expert would have touched what she was trying to do.
B: No one can explain from the very beginning what happened, who knew what when, nor how they were going to answer for it when
they got caught, if they got caught.
C. The Steele Dossier is the most amateurish piece of garbage they could think of. It was born out of some comments made
by Trump during the debates when both he and his opponents started talking about hand size.
D. When and if Barr and Horowitz get the information compiled, this is going to look worse than a school election of a
class president for the 9th grade. Mostly testosterone and no where to put it.
And yet FBI has said, that they took the Steele Report seriously because it confirmed a series of information, that FBi already
had, but check every line of the report. What was the result of that FBI examination we don't know.
Yeah, right. Comey will email SUBORDINATES to go on record that it's not HIS idea . . .but we'll go with the dossier anyway.
If you got a problem with Brennan, why not memorialize that in an email to Brennan?
Ultimate CYA swamp creature. What ever happened to the "Comey Memo"? Has anybody actually seen it? Was it written on Windows?
Can we see the metadata to prove when it was written? or was it penned on a bar napkin, and can be edited at any time.
In an alternate universe, we would have Comey, Clapper and Brennan in adjacent rooms, two chairs a table and harsh lighting.
Pretty rich for Comey to call for searching for facts professionally, like the clown car investigation under him was professional.
Unh huh. Surrrre.
This Baker *** hat and Obongo and crew looovved the "dossier" and thought it was just the ticket to be used against Trump and
his people. Just the most natural thing there was and oh so useful for their purposes. So WHAAAAT if the "dossier" stank like
dead cow. Surrre. What Democrat DOESN'T want to pursue a decapitation strategy? And surrre the basis for one was right there in
that socialist scumbag's "dossier." And, surrre, i believe Steele is no long were MI-6. Fisking Theresa May.
Surrre this *** hat was just brimming with effing skepticism and I'm surrre there are emails and memos expressing just that,
his skepticism.
I see parallels from the twenties with what's happening today. For example, Prohibition was meant to outlaw drinking. Instead,
it made drinkers into outlaws. Breaking the law became commonplace. New York closed 15,000 legal saloons when prohibition began.
Some 32,000 illegal speakeasy's replaced them. Upstanding citizens and mobsters became partners in crime, allied against federal
agents in the battle for booze.
Today, that battle is against feds for truth and justice.
This guy is a lawyer. He owed a duty to inform the judge that his bosses were lying about the warrant. He owed a duty to
counsel his bosses to make them stop what they were doing and consider if it was a violation.
Unless he did those two things, he should go to jail and also be disbarred and also be subject to civil suits for those
who had to pay attorney fees during the investigation.
Why are they bending over backwards to protect the British, who were the real interferers in the American election. Clinton
mob-CIA-MI6-Steele-Pablo Miller-Skripal-Steele-Clinton mob.
Had to be "buried" when Trump won, so MI6 took out Skripal and CIA took out Seth Rich.
Seth Rich and CIA? Don't think so. DNC has an army of lawyers, the kind that aren't in the phone book. They know lots of people
who are willing to do things for a price.
Recall the Podesta email, re: DNC "hack": We're gonna make an example of this guy. So, they seem to know who it is that
stole the emails, and they are going to "make an example" of him. And do recall the statement of Donna Brazile, who expressed
fear for her own safety in the wake of the Seth Rich murder: "you don't know what these people are capable of".
If this had not been an amateur job, we would still not know anything. There would be no investigation because the players
would never have been identified like 95% of all counter intelligence work. Seth Rich was killed in plain sight as a message to
some one else. He was probably the only innocent person involved at such a deep level.
When listening to an account of an event on TV or written in a blurb on the internet, always ask, why do they want us to
know this stuff? The answer is usually so they can hide what they are really doing.
So Strzok worked with Mueller in Boston. Really close circle of friends.
Notable quotes:
"... In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI. ..."
"... "In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone, and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government." ..."
"... Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time. ..."
"... Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he reminded Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant. ..."
"... There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him. ..."
"... You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey. ..."
"... Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. ..."
"... Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades. ..."
Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham was appointed to investigate the origins of the Russia-Trump probe. Apparently, he has been
on the job for weeks.
Durham is the perfect investigator for the job by all accounts and he had experience with Robert Mueller in the Whitey Bulger
case. He did not side with Mueller and Mueller's agents suffered the consequences of Mueller's, some would say, corrupt leadership.
THE WHITEY BULGER CASE
Back in the late 1990s, there were "allegations that FBI informants James 'Whitey' Bulger and Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi had
corrupted their handlers. So, in 1999, Janet Reno appointed John Durham as Special Prosecutor and charged him with investigating FBI corruption in Boston.
As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes. Bulger was a protected informant. Durham sent one agent involved to prison for 10 years.
Then-US Attorney, Robert Mueller is probably the one who should have landed in the pen. He allowed four innocent men to be sent
to prison for a murder he knew they didn't commit. He did it to protect Bulger. One of the four men was in Florida at the time of the murder and could not have committed the murder.
When Durham went through the documents. He found that the four men,
Enrico Tameleo ,
Joseph Salvati ,
Peter J. Limone ,
and Louis Greco, had actually been framed. Four people who were innocent were kept in jail for years in order to protect the status of Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.
"[Mike] Albano [former Parole Board Member who was threatened by two F.B.I. agents for considering parole for the men imprisoned
for a crime they did not commit] was appalled that, later that same year, Mueller was appointed FBI director, because it was Mueller,
first as an assistant US attorney then as the acting U.S. attorney in Boston, who wrote letters to the parole and pardons board
throughout the 1980s opposing clemency for the four men framed by FBI lies. Of course, Mueller was also in that position while
Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset
"
In December 2000, Durham revealed secret FBI documents that convinced a judge to vacate the 1968 murder convictions of "four other
FBI informants because they'd been framed by Robert Mueller's FBI.
"In 2007," to help protect Whitey Bulger (that's what all those people were held in jail for) "the documents helped Salvati, Limone,
and the families of the two other men who had died in prison to win a US $101.7 million civil judgment against the government."
Durham got the two surviving framed men released from prison. Robert Mueller was knee-deep in this scandal, along with Andrew Weissman and the agent sent to prison, but because Reno gave him
very limited authority, Durham was not able to prosecute Mueller, who was not in the FBI at the time.
Mueller kept four innocent people in jail for years to protect the informant status of Whitey Bulger, a mass-murdering Boston
mobster who ended up dying in California, and it ended up costing the government $100 million plus in civil judgments.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ CALLED MUELLER A "ZEALOT"
Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, calling Mueller a "zealot," he
reminded
Mueller supporters about the former FBI director's role in protecting "notorious mass murderer" Whitey Bulger as an FBI informant.
"I think Mueller is a zealot," Dershowitz told
"The Cats Roundtable" on 970 AM-N.Y.
". . . I don't think he cares whether he hurts Democrats or Republicans, but he's a partisan and zealot.
"He's the guy who kept four innocent people in prison for many years in order to protect the cover of Whitey Bulger as an FBI
informer. Those of us in Boston don't have such high regard for Mueller because we remember this story. The government had to
pay out tens of millions of dollars because Whitey Bulger, a notorious mass murderer, became a government informer against the
mafia . . .
"And that's regarded in Boston of one of the great scandals of modern judicial
history
. And Mueller was right at the center of it. So, he is not without criticism by people who know him in Boston."
HOW DID MUELLER BECOME THE SPECIAL PROSECUTOR?
There were other cases in which Mueller behaved scandalously,
here and here . Former U.S.
Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Sydney Powell tells the same story. She
calls them creeps on a mission and has a website of the same name detailing the offenses of Mueller and Weissman.
How did Robert Mueller end up as the Special Prosecutor? Thank a Democrat. The Democrats insisted he was a great man of inviolable
character. They said he was the impeccable man and investigator.
There is also the fact that Rod Rosenstein seems to think well of him.
You can be sure there are a lot of people losing sleep knowing Durham is on the case. You might have noticed Rod Rosenstein, the
former Deputy Attorney General, is out trashing Jim Comey.
For his part, Jim Comey hasn't written anything inspirational or anti-Trump on Twitter for four days. He has been giving a lot
of public speeches lately. Maybe he should shut up.
Strzok was in the Boston FBI office at the same time. The entire FBI is crooked. They supposedly couldn't find Bulger for years.
Then the case was going to be turned over to the US Marshal Service. And what do you know, someone in Greenland or Iceland called
the FBI with a tip that Bulger was in California. And just like that the FBI goes and picks him up with less force than they used
to pick up Roger Stone. The FBI is dirty. Every single one of them.
Mueller was the perfect choice for special prosecutor because they have so much dirt on him he'll do whatever they tell him
to do. Modus Operandi in DC for many many decades.
What about the frame up of Edgar J Steele ? Another victim of a corrupt FBI investigation and a corrupt jewdiciary.
I used to find Edgar's "nickle rants" entertaining. What happened to him gave me the biggest red pill of my life.
"Whenever you find something foul, when you peel back the layers; more often than not you find the same maggots underneath
it all." Please forgive my quote may not be precise as I don't have my copy of Song of the Reich handy. I think you get the point
though.
Not for me. I simply assume government is corrupt beyond our wildest dreams. Remember the story of the Dutch banker who escaped
the Illuminati and his story of laundering proceeds from Iranian oil sales when Iran was, once again, under sanctions in former
years? That trucks and trucks pulled up to these German banks loaded with USD. His job was to make sure that money continued its
journey...but not in a truck.
But I'm with Team. What the **** did I just read? This is like being in a small town and learning yet another tidbit in a scandelous
affair. Soap opera-ville. Like, dude! What's goin' happen next?
Mueller appears to have been dirty for some time now. This speaks to the extent of the swamp more than anything else. Mueller
is careful enough to not break criminal law so all he'll ever suffer is criticism for loading up his team with Trump haters. None
of these people will go down for anything unless Weissman is tagged with withholding exculpatory evidence, again.
How do you cost your employer 100 million and still have a job? This is why I don't believe anything. If this true, then our
country is really in bad shape. No American would do this.
There were so many "real dirty birds", but I'd add Hilliary, Holder, Lynch, and Clapper to round out the high-profile list.
As an ex-President and the first "magic" one I expect Obama to get a pass.
Hey fellas, gee wiz. Turns out those guys we gave special rights, special power, specials guns, and special equipment too actually
hurt people with them. Who'd'a thunk?
"As it turned out, FBI agents aided mass murderer, Whitey Bulger and hid his crimes"
Over the past two years, I have heard Sean Hannity bad mouth the upper echelons of the FBI. He consistently goes on to grovel
and talk about the thousands of agents in local offices who are hard working agents doing a great job. I always though his ***
kissing was to good to be true. Now I read just how corrupt local agents are, willing to send innocent people to jail to protect
some dirt bag.
I've come to the conclusion that the FBI is full of dirty agents from top to bottom. Time to abolish the FBI.
Every government agency is. Thats the nature of it. Power corrupts. You think you can create an agency of human beings, give
them special powers, special rights, special guns, special equipment, turn them loose on society and think they are not going
to dry **** everybody who gets in their way?
The FBI (originally the BI) was first headed by Napoleon Bonaparte's grand nephew, a family not noted for republican sentiments.
It was set up as a political police to persecute communists. Fair enough! But as Ward Churchill in his book by the same name calls
the FBI, they are Agents of Repression . It could be communists one decade, conservatives the next, libertarians after
that.
The FBI's reputation as an investigative body is very poor. Its crime lab has made hideous blunders. Its fingerprint section
accused a man in Spain of finding his fingerprints on a bomb until other international fingerprint experts proved that the fingerprints
definitely were not those of the man the FBI accused. Local and state police throughout the US universally loathe FBI interference
with their cases because all the FBI does is interfere with their investigations and do it only so it (the FBI) can grandstand.
It's investigation of the false flag 9-11event was a cover-up, as was its investigation of the false flag Boston Marathon "bombing".
Two of the three "suspects" were shot to death by the FBI and the third is in prison for life for something he didn't even do.
How much did Whitey Bulger give Mueller to earn protection? Therein lies the most critical issue of all. 'How much' could be
how many mafia members the FBI brought down because of Bulger. It could also be how much Mueller benefited in other ways. Payoffs,
anyone?
However, there may be another benefit. What did Bulger know about Mueller? To be black-mailable over many years, and to be
truly effective, it must be devastating and run both ways--let's call it mutually assured blackmail.
It purports to be fiction, but DC, the Dark City is the inside story of how absolute power corrupts absolutely. It's
a horror story and an eye-opener, politics viewed from inside the establishment.
insanelysane
The Bulger thing gets really interesting because Bulger's brother was the President of the Massachusetts Senate during the
same time. Billy Bulger was a big time Democrat in Massachusetts, shocking of course. So you have 1 brother running the mob and
the other brother, well, running a mob at the State House.
One story, link below, has an honest State Trooper try to search Whitey's bags at Logan Airport. Whitey throws a bag to a lackey
and the lackey disappears. Trooper reports the incident and guess what happens. Trooper is reassigned to hell for interfering
with the Brothers Bulger and the FBI.
"... According to Fox , Barr is "serious" and has assembled a team from the DOJ to participate in the probe, adding that Durham is known as a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor according to their source. ..."
"... Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period -- prior to Nov. 7, 2016 - - including the use and initiation of informants , as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses. ..."
"... An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser, it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to "seduce" him as part of the "bizarre" episode. ..."
"... Durham has a history of serving as a special prosecutor, investigating wrongdoing among national security officials - including the FBI's ties to a Boston crime boss, as well as accusations of CIA detainee abuse. ..."
"... According to the report, Durham's review would run in parallel with the ongoing DOJ probe by Inspector General (IG) Michael Horowitz. Meanwhile, Republicans have been seeking answers from US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, who was appointed by former AG Jeff Sessions to review FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses, as well as authorities' handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation . ..."
"... As part of the FBI's FISA application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the FBI cut-and-pasted from a disputed Washington Post article which suggested that the Trump campaign may have been compromised. The agency also repeatedly told the FISA court that it "did not believe" UK ex-spy Christopher Steele was the source of a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff which implicated Page in Russian collusion. ..."
"... London court records , however, reveal that contrary to the FBI's statements, Steele had briefed Yahoo News and other media outlets in the fall of 2016 at the urging of his employer Fusion GPS - which the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) had paid for anti-Trump opposition research. This information was withheld from FISA judges during the application to surveil Page. ..."
"... Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in Miami." ..."
"... Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no Russian consulate in Miami. " ..."
"... Could it be that Mueller was in charge of the Boston mobster thing, and he ended up with a giant promotion to head of the agency? So what exactly happened as a result of that "investigation"? ..."
"... So, Huber was Sessions' special stooge put in place to help smother the truth? ..."
"... Catch 22. They all have the same paymaster. Kinda like asking whores to testify against their pimps. ..."
"... Alexander Downer also funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election campaign ..."
Attorney General William Barr has appointed US Attorney John H. Durham of Connecticut to examine the origins of the Trump-Russia
investigation to determine if the FBI's spying on the Trump campaign was "lawful and appropriate," according to Fox News .
The move comes as the Trump administration has demanded answers over the use of "informants" on his 2016 campaign.
According to Fox , Barr is "serious" and has assembled a team from the DOJ to participate in the probe, adding that
Durham is known as a "hard-charging, bulldog" prosecutor according to their source.
Sources familiar with matter say the focus of the probe includes the pre-transition period -- prior to Nov. 7, 2016 - -
including
the use and initiation of informants , as well as potential Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) abuses.
An informant working for U.S. intelligence posed as a Cambridge University research assistant in September 2016 to try
extracting any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia from George Papadopoulos, then a Trump foreign policy adviser,
it emerged earlier this month. Papadopoulos told Fox News the informant tried to "seduce" him as part of the "bizarre" episode.
Durham previously has investigated law enforcement corruption, the destruction of CIA videotapes and the Boston FBI office's
relationship with mobsters. He is set to continue to serve as the chief federal prosecutor in Connecticut. -
Fox News
Of note - in January House Republicans Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows
wrote to Durham , saying that they had "discovered" he was "investigating former FBI General Counsel James Baker" over unauthorized
leaks to the media, adding "We know the DOJ and FBI departed from traditional investigative and prosecutorial practices, and insufficiently
adhered to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
Durham has a history of serving as a special prosecutor, investigating wrongdoing among national security officials - including
the FBI's ties to a Boston crime boss, as well as accusations of CIA detainee abuse.
According to the report, Durham's review would run in parallel with the ongoing DOJ probe by Inspector General (IG) Michael
Horowitz. Meanwhile, Republicans have been seeking answers from US Attorney for Utah, John Huber, who was appointed by former AG
Jeff Sessions to review FBI and DOJ surveillance abuses, as well as authorities' handling of the probe into the Clinton Foundation
.
Not much has come of Huber's investigation, while Republicans have cautioned that he has spoken with few key witnesses and whistleblowers.
Durham's appointment comes about a month after Barr told members of Congress he believed "spying did occur" on the Trump campaign
in 2016. He later said he didn't mean anything pejorative and was gathering a team to look into the origins of the special counsel's
investigation.
As part of the FBI's FISA application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the FBI cut-and-pasted from a disputed Washington
Post article which suggested that the Trump campaign may have been compromised. The agency also repeatedly told the FISA court that
it "did not believe" UK ex-spy Christopher Steele was the source of a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff which implicated
Page in Russian collusion.
London court records , however, reveal that contrary to the FBI's statements, Steele had briefed Yahoo News and other media
outlets in the fall of 2016 at the urging of his employer Fusion GPS - which the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee
(DNC) had paid for anti-Trump opposition research. This information was withheld from FISA judges during the application to surveil
Page.
What's more, the FBI could not verify the dodgy dossier Steele assembled . Speaking Fox on 'Sunday Morning Futures,' Senate Judiciary
Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham said "There's a document that's classified that I'm gonna try to get unclassified that takes the
dossier -- all the pages of it -- and it has verification to one side," adding "There really is no verification, other than media
reports that were generated by reporters that received the dossier."
Graham cited a recent report from
The Hill 's John Solomon which reveals that the FBI was specifically informed that Steele had admitted he was "keen" to influence
the 2016 election with his document.
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec's
written account of her
Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the
Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence
operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline . -
The Hill
Solomon also
reported last week that a high-ranking government official who met with Christopher Steele in October 2016 determined that information
in the Trump-Russia dossier was inaccurate , and likely leaked to the media.
Ten days before the FBI used the now-discredited dossier to apply for a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to
spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page, Steele met with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec, who took handwritten
notes of the encounter.
Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited
US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate in
Miami."
Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no
Russian consulate in Miami. "
What makes this particularly damning is that the FBI swore on October 21, 2016 to the FISA judges that Steele's "reporting has
been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings," and that the FBI deemed him to be "reliable" and was "unaware of any derogatory
information pertaining" to the former British spy who was working for Fusion GPS - the firm paid by the DNC and the Clinton campaign
to come up with dirt on Donald Trump.
And now U.S. Attorney John Durham will sort out exactly what happened, we can only hope.
that rank stench hitting your nostrils is the clinton criminal syndicate. they have, from their beginning days in arkansas,
killed, bribed, extorted, blackmailed, stole, and fucked their way through the political system. if you wonder why they aren't
in Leavenworth, think of ALL the "government employees, i.e., representatives, diplomats, congressmen/women, etc., protecting
these vermin from the light of the truth. they have found "the way" to find and keep friends in the deep state. they make you
an offer you can't refuse............
Something doesn't smell right on this one. Could it be that Mueller was in charge of the Boston mobster thing, and he ended
up with a giant promotion to head of the agency? So what exactly happened as a result of that "investigation"?
This guy Durham has a very suspicious looking mustache. Comey may end up as Biden's VP. Just sayin'.
"Steele told Kavalec that Russia had a "technical/human operation run out of Moscow targeting the election," which recruited
US emigres to "do hacking and recruiting. Steele added that "Payments to those recruited are made out of the Russian consulate
in Miami."
Except that's a lie - as Kavalec debunked the assertion in a bracketed comment: " It is important to note that there is no
Russian consulate in Miami. "
Alexander Downer former foreign minister is the one who was meddling - Australia's high commissioner to the UK in 2016
Started whole Russiagate investigation against Trump's campaign by telling the FBI that a drunken George Papadopoulos had said
Russia had dirt on Hillary. Because of his diplomatic standing the FBI took Downer seriously and it was a major factor in their
decision to investigate.
Alexander Downer also funnelled millions in Australian tax dollars to the Clinton Foundation during Hillary's election
campaign
"Downer is suspected of helping to "dishonestly" obtain $25 million from the Australian government for the Clinton Foundation's
Clinton HIV/AIDs Initiative (CHAI). Michael Smith (former Australian police detective) says that he gave materials to the FBI
containing evidence that shows "corrupt October 2006 backdating of false tender advertisements purporting to advertise the availability
of a $15 million contract to provide HIV/AIDS services in Papua New Guinea on behalf of the Australian government after an agreement
was already in place to pay the Clinton Foundation and/or associates."
Smith also found evidence of a "$10 million financial advantage dishonestly obtained by deception between April 1, 2008, and
Sept. 25, 2008, at Washington, D.C., New York, New York, and Canberra Australia involving an MOU between the Australian government,
the 'Clinton Climate Initiative,' and the purported 'Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute Inc.'"
I agree with you. It is about branding. Coke versus Pepsi but more committed. I don't think that way but Democrats seem to.
The ones I know are filled with hate. The real paradigm is World Government v. Nation States, not Dem v. Repub.
Congreff could have done some little thing about the DS aholes that lied in testimony, but a fat zero. Clapper was a slam dunk
as they say at this time of year in bubble bouncing. Come to thing of it, and sing along with the bouncing ball----"I'm Forever
Blowing Bubbles"......
Barring (no pun intended) the images of Hillary and Obama being lead in cuffs into a black Tahoe on the 6 oclock news, I don't
think it will go anywhere as the MSM won't report it.
All you people who recently said, "Nothing will happen. Wake me if anyone gets indicted." SEE? We told you the tide had turned
with a new sheriff, Russia hoax investigation over. Now, the gauntlet drops. Talk about needing to buy some popcorn!
"... Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by the special counsel ; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed { Go Deep } where George Papadopoulos was approached by a known CIA operative named Charles Tawil. ..."
"... In interviews Papadopoulos said he was uncomfortable with the way the encounters had taken place. He became suspect of Tawil's motives; something didn't feel right. Instead of keeping the cash, Papadopoulos gave the money to an attorney in Greece before traveling back to the U.S. on July 27th, 2017. ..."
"... Upon arrival at Dulles airport on July 27th, 2017, Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting. Papadopoulos was stopped and his bags were searched; however, he did not have the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer. Papadopoulos was detained overnight by FBI agents, and questioned. ..."
"... [W]hen he was arrested [detained] at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint . The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved by Howell in Washington. ..."
"... All of it suggests something of a scramble, rather than a carefully prepared plan to take Papadopoulos into custody. ( more ) ..."
"... Papadopoulos has stated the special counsel threatened him with charges of acting as a unregistered agent for Israel. There's a clear picture here . ..."
"... #1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges. ..."
"... Andrew Weissmann was conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation; (2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering . All it needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S. ..."
"... Lastly, to repeat, this entire scenario was constructed by the DOJ/FBI team operation in 2017. The members of the Special Counsel were running the entrapment operation; the FBI agents were participating in the operation. This is not *investigating* criminal conduct; this is manufacturing criminal conduct. ..."
"... Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was in charge of the Mueller Special Counsel. ..."
"... The only way DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller didn't know about the operation is if they both claim that Andrew Weissmann was completely rogue and in control over the FBI agents. ..."
Recently release FOIA documents into the special counsel team of Robert Mueller reveal the remarkable trail of a 2017 entrapment
scheme conducted by Prosecutor Andrew Weissmann to target George Papadopoulos.
Before digging into the details it is important to note this is a DOJ/FBI entrapment operation being conducted in 2017 by
the special counsel ; this is not prior to the 2016 election. The detail surrounds a series of events previously discussed {
Go Deep } where George Papadopoulos was approached by a
known CIA operative named Charles Tawil.
In 2017 George Papadopoulos and his wife Simona were approached in Greece by a
known CIA/FBI operative , Charles Tawil.
Mr. Tawil enlisted George as a business consultant, under the auspices of energy development interests, and invited him to Israel.
On June 8th, 2017, in Israel under very suspicious circumstances, where Papadopoulos felt very unnerved, Mr. Tawil hands him $10,000
in cash for future consultancy based on a
$10k/month retainer .
On June 9th, 2017, according to his book, Papadopoulos and Tawil fly back to Cyprus.
... ... ...
In interviews Papadopoulos said he was uncomfortable with the way the encounters had taken place. He became suspect of Tawil's
motives; something didn't feel right. Instead of keeping the cash, Papadopoulos gave the money to an attorney in Greece before traveling
back to the U.S. on July 27th, 2017.
Upon arrival at Dulles airport on July 27th, 2017, Robert Mueller had FBI agents waiting. Papadopoulos was stopped and his
bags were searched; however, he did not have the cash because he smartly left it in Greece with his lawyer. Papadopoulos was detained
overnight by FBI agents, and questioned.
[ ] Stanley said Papadopoulos arrived on a Lufthansa flight from Munich that touched down at about 7 p.m . on July 27, and
the FBI intercepted him as soon as he got off the plane.
"He was arrested [detained] before he got to Customs and he was then held at the airport before being brought to
a law enforcement office," Stanley recalled. (
link )
[W]hen he was arrested [detained] at Dulles Airport on July 27 after coming off a flight from Munich, prosecutors
had no warrant for him and no indictment or criminal complaint . The complaint would be filed the following morning and approved
by Howell in Washington.
And when prosecutors filed the complaint the next day they got a spoken order from Howell to seal it, but followed up with
a written request that they could take to the magistrate in Alexandria, where they showed up almost an hour later than she expected.
All of it suggests something of a scramble, rather than a carefully prepared plan to take Papadopoulos into custody. (
more )
Here's where the recent revelations come in. According to Andrew Weissmann's schedule on June 13th, 2017, he was in conversations
surrounding the basis of a Cyprus Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT):
6/8/17 US intelligence asset Charles Tawil gives George $10K cash in Israel 6/9/17 George Papadopoulos flies to Cyprus w $10K 6/13/17
Andrew Weissmann starts series of "Cyprus MLAT" meetings with FBI 6/13/17 Andrew Weissmann phone call w/ FBI Money Laundering and
Asset Recovery "MLARS" section of FBI.
It would appear Weissmann was well aware of the Cyprus "Tawil operation" and engaged in communication regarding Cyprus. Additionally,
he was discussing "Money Laundering and Asset Recovery" w/ FBI. [MLARS Link
]
Taken in combination with hindsight of the search for the cash, and lack of a pre-existing warrant at the airport, this is clear
evidence of a coordinated operation to entrap Papadopoulos.
Remember, the preferred approach toward targeting Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos surrounded FARA (Foreign Agent
Registration Act) lobbying violations. Papadopoulos has stated the special counsel threatened him with charges of acting as a
unregistered agent for Israel. There's a clear picture here .
#1) Papadopoulos was lured to Israel and paid in Israel to give the outline of a FARA premise (ie. Papadopoulos is an agent
of Israel). #2) Bringing $10,000 (or more) in cash into the U.S., without reporting, is a violation of U.S. treasury laws. Add into
that aspect the FARA violation and the money can be compounded into #3) laundering charges.
[A "laundering" charge applies if the money is illegally obtained. The FARA violation would be the *illegal* aspect making the
treasury charges heavier. Note: the use of the airport baggage-check avoids the need for a search warrant.]
Andrew Weissmann was conducting an entrapment scheme that would have ended up with three violations of law: (1) Treasury violation;
(2) FARA violation; (3) Money laundering . All it needed was Papadopoulos to carry the undeclared cash into the U.S.
However, because Papadopoulos suspected something, and left the money in Greece with his lawyers, upon arrival at the airport
the operation collapsed in reverse . No money means no treasury violation, no laundering and no evidence of the consultancy
agreement (which would have been repurposed in the DOJ filing to mean lobbying for Israel via Mr. Tawil who would have become
a confidential informant and witness).
That operational collapse is why the FBI agents were "scrambling" at the airport and why they had no pre-existing criminal complaint.
The entrapment's success was contingent upon the cash.
Lastly, to repeat, this entire scenario was constructed by the DOJ/FBI team operation in 2017. The members of the Special
Counsel were running the entrapment operation; the FBI agents were participating in the operation. This is not *investigating* criminal
conduct; this is manufacturing criminal conduct.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was in charge of the Mueller Special Counsel.
The only way DAG Rosenstein and Robert Mueller didn't know about the operation is if they both claim that Andrew Weissmann
was completely rogue and in control over the FBI agents.
Oh, wait, what does the Mueller report say about the FBI agents and their chain-of-legal guidance and command?
... ... ...
With events happening in June/July 2017 Rod Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, former FBI legal counsel Jim Baker, former Deputy FBI
Director McCabe, together with current FBI legal counsel Dana Boente and current FBI Director Wray were what? Hoodwinked?
It is true that "Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent political
scandal in modern American history."
Notable quotes:
"... But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. ..."
"... A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela, where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood, ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war. ..."
"... To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only condemnation. ..."
"... Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, also expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American statesmen.) ..."
"... Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation, though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and intelligence overlord James Clapper. ..."
"... Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul." ..."
"... It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security. ..."
"... That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just their official tweetsman. ..."
"... So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, ..."
"... the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the American People while "endangering national security" for us all. ..."
"... The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex, via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several others. ..."
If Venezuela becomes a Cuban Missile–like Crisis, will Trump be free to resolve it
peacefully?
Now in its third year, Russiagate is the worst, most corrosive, and most fraudulent
political scandal in modern American history. It rests on two related core allegations: that
Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an "attack on American democracy" during the 2016
presidential campaign in order to put Donald Trump in the White House, and that Trump and his
associates willfully colluded, or conspired, in this Kremlin "attack." As I have argued from
the outset -- see my regular commentaries posted at
TheNation.com and my recent book War With Russia?
-- and as recently confirmed, explicitly and tacitly, by special prosecutor Robert Mueller's
report, there is no factual evidence for either allegation.
Nonetheless, these Russiagate allegations, not "Putin's Russia," continue to inflict grave
damage on fundamental institutions of American democracy. They impugn the integrity of the
presidency and now the office of the attorney general. They degrade the many Democratic members
of Congress who persist in clinging to the allegations and thus the Democratic Party and
Congress. And they have enticed mainstream media into one of the worst episodes of
journalistic malpractice in modern times .
But equally alarming, Russiagate continues to endanger American national security by
depriving a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the diplomatic flexibility
to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis. We were given a vivid example in July
2018, when Trump held a summit with the current Kremlin occupant, as every president had done
since Dwight Eisenhower. For that conventional, even necessary, act of diplomacy, Trump was
widely accused of treasonous behavior, a charge that persists. Now we have another alarming
example of this reckless disregard for US national security on the part of Russiagate
zealots.
On May 3, Trump called Putin. They discussed various issues, including the Mueller report.
(As before, Putin had to know if Trump was free to implement any acts of security cooperation
they might agree on. Indeed, the Russian policy elite openly debates this question, many of its
members having decided that Trump cannot cooperate with Russia no matter his intentions.)
A major subject of the conversation was unavoidably the growing conflict over Venezuela,
where Washington and Moscow have long-standing economic and political interests. Trump
administration spokespeople have warned Moscow against interfering in America's neighborhood,
ignoring, of course, Washington's deep involvement for years in the former Soviet republics of
Ukraine and Georgia. Kremlin representatives, on the other hand, have warned Washington against
violating Venezuela's sovereignty. Increasingly, there is talk, at least in Moscow policy
circles, of a Cuban Missile–like crisis, the closest the United States and Russia (then
Soviet Russia) ever came to nuclear war.
To the extent, however remote, that Venezuela might grow into a Cuba-like US-Russian
military confrontation, would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve
it peacefully, as President John Kennedy did in 1962? Judging by mainstream media commentary on
the May 3 phone conversation, the answer seems to be no. Considering the mounting confrontation
in Venezuela, Trump was right, even obligated, to call Putin, but he got no applause, only
condemnation. To take some random examples:
Democratic Representative David Cicilline asked CNN's Chris Cuomo rhetorically on May 3,
"Why does the president give the benefit of doubt to a person who attacked our democracy?"
while assailing Trump for not confronting Putin with the Mueller report.
The same evening, CNN's Don Lemon editorialized on the phone call: "The president of the
United States had just a normal old call with his pal Vladimir Putin. Didn't tell him not to
interfere in the election. Like he did in 2016, like he did in 2018, like we know he is
planning to do again in 2020 . You just don't seem to want us to know exactly what was said .
Nothing to see when the president talks for more than an hour with the leader of an enemy
nation. One that has repeatedly attacked our democracy and will do so again." (Lemon did not
say on what he based the expanded, serial charges against Putin and thus against Trump or his
allegation about the 2018 elections, which congressional Democrats mostly won, or his
foreknowledge about 2020 or generally and with major ramifications why he branded Russia an
"enemy nation.")
We might expect something more exalted from James Risen ,
once a critical-minded investigative reporter, who found it suspicious that "Trump and Putin
were both eager to put the Mueller report behind them," even for the sake of needed
diplomacy.
Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk. Swalwell was sure it meant
that Trump "acts on their behalf," that he "is putting the Russians' interests ahead of the
United States' interests." (Voters may wonder if these candidates and quite a few others who
continue to promote extremist Russiagate allegations are emerging American
statesmen.)
Not surprisingly,
a Washington Post opinion writer argued that the phone call meant "Trump is counting on
Russian help to get reelected."
None of these "opinion leaders" mentioned the danger of a US-Russian military confrontation
over Venezuela or elsewhere on the several fraught fronts of the new Cold War. Indeed, retired
admiral James Stavridis, once supreme allied commander of NATO forces and formerly associated
with Hillary Clinton's campaign, all but proposed war on
Russia in retaliation for its "attack on our democracy," including "unprecedented measures"
such as cyberattacks.
Russiagate's unproven allegations are an aggressive malignancy spreading through
America's politics to the most vital areas of national security policy. A full nonpartisan
investigation into their origins is urgently needed, but US intelligence agencies were almost
certainly present at their creation, which is why I have long argued that Russiagate
is actually Intelgate . If so, James Comey, then FBI director, was present at the creation,
though initially in a lesser role than were President Barack Obama's CIA Director John Brennan
and intelligence overlord James Clapper.
Comey recently deplored Attorney General William Barr's declaration that US intelligence
agencies resorted to "spying" on the Trump campaign. (In fact, Barr mischaracterized what
happened: The agencies, first and foremost Brennan's CIA, it seems, ran an entrapment operation
against members of the campaign.) Comey warned Barr
that he will discover that Trump "has eaten your soul."
It would be more accurate to say -- and certainly more important -- that baseless
Russiagate allegations are eating America's national security.
President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: "the director is protecting the
coup gang"
Posted on May 12, 2019 by sundance
This is good to see. Finally President Trump indicates he is well aware of the intents and
motives of FBI Director Christopher Wray covering for the illegal coup effort:
President Trump may have been aware of Chris Wray's corrupt disposition prior to today;
however, this is the first visible indication he understands the internecine organization of
it. Hopefully we can start the countdown clock to Wray's exit.
Next up, Chris Wray's #1 strategic hire, current FBI Legal Counsel Dana Boente.
President Trump Calls Out FBI Director Christopher Wray: 'The FBI Has No Leadership; The
Director is Protecting the Same Gang That Tried to Overthrow the President Through an Illegal
Coup'....
Russiagate deprives ... a US president, for the first time in the nuclear age, of the
diplomatic flexibility to deal with a Kremlin leader in times of crisis
That, doc, is the raison d'etre of Russiagate. That's how far this coup d'etat in
Washington has gotten. The showrunners/secret coupsters finally going public with the
previously surmised fact that they, not Trump, are running the show and that DJT is just
their official tweetsman.
Sounds right to me.
would Trump be sufficiently free of Russiagate allegations to resolve it peacefully, as
President John Kennedy did in 1962?
But Trump wouldn't be the one peacefully resolving anything. He was deprived of it by more
important powers that be. So he'll only get an award from the MSM for his
portrayal/impression of a 21st Century American statesman/politician.
Which will set the bar quite high for future Trumps-to-come.
GWB seized all kinds of power after 911, Bill Clinton got big power for Fast Track of WTO
& NAFTA, Presidential Signing Orders or Executive Powers become Increased as I remember
under GWB then expanded under Obama, Bill Clinton took extended time in bombing campaign in
Balkans above congressional war powers act, but GWB seemed to have complete war powers in his
admin, Dirty War Powers included,... Point is that Democrats & Republicans, the Money
Party, the One Party conveniently forget that powers granted to Dems or GOP... are then
available in corrupt universe of USSA...
Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representative Eric Swalwell, both candidates for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination, also
expressed deep suspicion regarding the Trump-Putin phone talk
How will Dims feel when the Next Obama get in and people want to witch hunt all his first
phone calls for foreign leaders?
So fake news and fake collusion now rule the country? NOT! The President has more
power now then he had prior to the Mueller Report being released, the report shows clear
obstruction from the Mueller team as they failed to do the basics in investigation, they
also purposefully ignored the obvious to continue with the fake investigation in order to
impede the President. The President is now more powerful as ever as the slow and methodical
take down of the left deep state continues. In the coming weeks it will become more and more
evident to the masses that the President was clearly correct and the attempted coupe of the
President was real and has failed. The mainstream media will become even less relevant
despite all of their efforts.
Congress will soon have no choice but to act in protecting free
speech and the hand of all the CIA controlled media will be tied and bound for generations to
come...
Everyone saw them except the US genpop. Russia,China,Israeli, UK everyone. Thats what she
was selling is my guess. Prolly had the whole fn country up for sale. Like a ebay for selling
off everything. Cops, judges, senators and congress people. Who is to say they were not just
selling it off by the slice like pizza?
the Mainstream Media has become a threat to democracy and the number one enemy of the
American People while "endangering national security" for us all.
The mainstream media is a wholly controlled subsidiary of the Military-Industrial complex,
via secret government programs such as Operation Mockingbird and doubtless several
others.
It is likely that the MIC, long puppeteered by shadowy financial forces through the
Federal Reserve and Bank of England, is doing everything it can to prevent Trump from
disturbing it's long running plans to encircle and subdue Russia via Mackinder's "Heartland"
theory. Preventing Trump from reaching across the divide to constructively engage with Putin
and Russia to break the economic stranglehold on their country is paramount to their
strategy.
One would be right to wonder why the British government is so intimately engaged in all of
these provocations. Could it be that they fear a loss of power and influence that could
result from a continental Europe more closely aligned with Russian interests? This question
is central to our current dilemma here in the states, unfortunately.
It's absolutely vital that the American people learn of the treachery of the British
elites before it is too late. Perfidious Albion, indeed...
Compared to Nadler, Pelosi, Schiff, Waters, Comey, Hillary, Obama, Mueller, the MSM, CNN,
PMSNBC, and all the rest of the loonatic left, Uncle Vladmmir Putin looks pretty good!
Dasvadaniya comrades!! (of course I am kidding you schmucks!)
This was clearly an attempt to entrap Trump in connections to Russia and fuel anti-Russian hysteria and defense spending. Both goals
were accomplished under Trump without much resistance. Still Russiagate persists. Why?
Notable quotes:
"... 05/03/16 Email from DNC contractor Ali Chalupa states she connected Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News "to the Ukrainians" DNC https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/3962 ..."
"... 05/15/16 Crowdstrike claims it investigated DNC hacking and that Russians were responsible; FBI still denied access to server to confirm Crowdstrike https://www.crowdstrike.com/blog/bears-midst-intrusion-democratic-national-committee/ ..."
03/06/16 Former Hillary State Dept. representative George Papadopoulos learns he will join Trump campaign as a low-level
foreign policy adviser DOJ
https://www.justice.gov/file/1007346/download
Looks more and more like Crowdstrike conducted false flag operation to implicate Russians, not a real investigation.
I always assumed that #Guccifer2 was either a Crowdstryke construction at DNC request (that's probably why it was so badly,
incompetently done) or a NSA construction (then, we somehow need to explain, why it was so badly done?). In both cases the
goal was to implicate Russia in a DNC 'hack' ...
Craig Murray has stated he received the DNC files in Wash DC from a leaker. Mueller failed to interview him, which
suggest the Mueller and his team were the part of cover-up, not the part of investigation.
Notable quotes:
"... We are told the GRU obtained files from the DNC network on April 22, 2016, (this is a little different to the Netyksho indictment that states the files were archived on April 22, 2016 and extracted later): ..."
"... The malware samples provided by CrowdStrike show that the earliest compile date of Fancy Bear malware reportedly discovered at the DNC was April 25, 2016 . ..."
"... Whoever was controlling the Guccifer 2.0 persona went out of their way to be perceived as Russian and made specious claims about having already sent WikiLeaks documents, even claiming that WikiLeaks would release them soon (all before Mueller records any initial contact between the parties) . ..."
"... The Special Counsel seems to have been impervious to critical pieces of countervailing evidence (some of which demonstrates that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately manufactured Russian breadcrumbs) and they have failed to accurately account for the acquisition of WikiLeaks' DNC emails (missing the date on which approximately 70% of them were collected) , which is, in itself, a stunning failure for a supposedly thorough investigation costing US taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. ..."
"... There should have been a proper, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the Guccifer 2.0 persona. The Special Counsel certainly hasn't done that job and, in retrospect, looks to have been ill-equipped (and perhaps somewhat reluctant) to do so from the outset. ..."
On April 18, 2019, a redacted version of Robert Mueller's report on "RussiaGate" related
activities was released to the public.
This article focuses on Volume I Part III titled "Russian Hacking & Dumping Operations"
and provides details of the errors made, critical omissions, lack of conclusive evidence and
reliance on assumptions and speculation.
We will also look at problems relating to attribution methods used, countervailing evidence
that has clearly been disregarded and other problems that are likely to have affected the
quality of the investigation and the report.
The Mueller Report: Context & Contradiction
We start with a read-through of this section of the report, highlighting missing context,
contradictions and errors.
Page 36
[To minimize repetition, we'll deal with statements made in this introduction where the
basis is explained or details are provided on other pages ahead.]
Page 36
While the Netyksho
indictment does provide details of intrusions and infrastructure used, it's still unclear
how the infrastructure has been attributed back to individuals in the GRU and no conclusive
evidence has been presented to support that in the indictment or the report.
In the Netyksho
indictment it is stated that the "middle-servers" are overseas:
So, what was the point in having a US-based AMS Panel if you're using overseas servers as
proxies?
This seems to be a needlessly noisy setup that somewhat defeats the purpose of having a
US-based server for the AMS panel.
This setup makes the assets allegedly used by GRU officers subject to US laws, subject to
Internet monitoring by US intelligence agencies and prone to being physically seized.
With the GRU using middle-servers, as alleged, there would have been absolutely no reason to
have the AMS panel hosted on a server within the US and every reason to have it hosted
elsewhere.
It almost seems like they wanted to get caught!
Page 40
We are told the GRU obtained files from the DNC network on April 22, 2016, (this is a
little different to the Netyksho indictment that states the files were archived on April 22,
2016 and extracted later):
The problem with this is that it suggests the GRU had their implant on the DNC network
earlier than what the available evidence supports.
Perhaps they didn't discover all the malware until later? (Though, with their flagship
product installed across the network, one would think they'd have detected all the malware
present by the time they reported on discoveries).
The implication that this was stolen from the DNC is questionable due to this.
Going further, the story surrounding this changed in November 2017 when the Associated Press
published a story titled " How Russians
hacked the Democrats' emails " in which they cite an anonymous former DNC official who
asserts that Guccifer 2.0's first document (the Trump opposition report) did not
originate in the DNC as initially reported.
Another interesting point relating to this is the "HRC_pass.zip" archive released by
Guccifer 2.0 on June 21, 2016 (
which also provided another US central timezone indication ) contained files with last
modification dates of April 26, 2016. While this fits within the above timeframe, the transfer
of the files individually, the apparent transfer speeds involved and the presence of FAT-like
2-second rounding artifacts ( noted elsewhere
in Guccifer 2.0's releases ) when the files came from an NTFS system (and the ZIP
implementation was not the cause) does not correlate well with what the report
outlines.
In spite of its name ("HRC_pass.zip") this archive appears to contain files that can be
sourced to the DNC. Out of 200 files, only one showed up as an attachment (in the Podesta
emails) .
Regarding the May 25 - June 1 timeframe cited, this seems to exclude the date on which
approximately 70% of the DNC's emails published on WikiLeaks' website were acquired (May 23,
2016)
What makes this interesting is that this is apparently being evaluated on evidence that was
very likely to have been provided by CrowdStrike:
Page 40
How did Crowdstrike's evidence not inform the FBI and Special Counsel of the real initial
acquisition date of WikiLeaks' DNC emails?
Was the May 23, 2016 activity not recorded?
Going back to the Netyksho indictment , we have also been
told that Yermakov was searching for Powershell commands between the May 25 - June 1st
period:
However, we know 70% of the DNC emails published by WikiLeaks had already been acquired
prior to that time, before Yermakov had allegedly researched how to access and manage the
Exchange server.
Page 41
We can tell from the use of "appear" here that the Special Counsel does not have conclusive
evidence to demonstrate this.
Page 41
While the overlap between reported phishing victims and the output of DCLeaks cannot be
denied, it is still unclear how bitcoin pools or leased infrastructure have been definitively
tied back to any GRU officers or the GRU itself.
This isn't to say that there isn't evidence of it (I would assume there is some evidence
or intelligence that supports the premise to some degree, at the very least) but we have no
idea what that could be and there is no explanation of how associations to individual GRU
officers were made (perhaps to protect HUMINT but this still leaves us completely in the
dark as to how attributions were made) .
We know already that things are assumed by the Special Counsel on the basis of
circumstantial evidence, so there is good reason to question whether the attributions made are
based on conclusive evidence.
Page 42
This is the first point at which to recall Assange's announcement on 12 June that WikiLeaks
was working on a release of "emails related to Hillary Clinton" - two days before the DNC goes
public about being hacked by Russians, and three days before the appearance of Guccifer
2.0.
It's also approximately one month before Mueller says Guccifer 2.0 first successfully sent
anything to WikiLeaks.
While WikiLeaks did mention this via their Twitter feed on June 16, 2016, they were clearly
skeptical of his claims to be a hacker and although they cite his claim about sending material
to WikiLeaks, they don't confirm it:
It also seems a little odd that the GRU would do searches for already translated phrases
(using Google translate to get English translations would be more understandable) and if
it's Guccifer 2.0 doing it why did he not use the VPN he used for his other activities
throughout the same day?
Why does the Mueller report not report on the IP address of the Moscow-based server from
which searches occurred? It wouldn't really expose sources and methods to disclose it and it's
unclear how it was determined to have been used and managed by a unit of the GRU. (Citation
#146 references the Netyksho indictment, however, that fails to provide evidence or explanation
of this too.)
The body content of a Trump Opposition research document (originally authored by Lauren
Dillon) that was attached to another of Podesta's emails was then
copied into the template document.
The document was saved (with a Russian author name), its body content cleared and this was
then re-used to produce two further "Russia-tainted" documents.
It was no accident that led to the documents being tainted in the way that they were and it
looks like Guccifer 2.0's version of the Trump opposition research didn't really come from the
DNC.
It should be noted that the data referenced above was also unrelated to the general election
and didn't have any noticeable impact on it (the 2.5Gb of data Guccifer 2.0 provided to
Aaron Nevins was unlikely to have hurt the Clinton campaign or affect the outcome of the
general election) .
In the states that the data related to, general election results didn't flip between the
time of the publication of the documents and the election:
Page 43
Interesting to note that Guccifer 2.0 lied about DCLeaks being a "sub project" of
WikiLeaks.
Page 44
The only materials Mueller alleges that WikiLeaks confirmed receipt of was a "1gb or so"
archive, for which, instructions to access were communicated in an attached message
(none-too-discreetly titled "wk dnc link1.txt.gpg") and sent by Guccifer 2 via
unencrypted email.
It is an assumption that this was an archive of DNC emails (it could have contained other
files Guccifer 2.0 subsequently released elsewhere).
We don't even know for sure whether WikiLeaks released what had been sent to them by either
entity.
This, of course, doesn't rule out the possibility of it being a portion of the overall
collection but what the persona had sent to WikiLeaks could also easily have been other
material relating to the DNC that we know Guccifer 2.0 later released or shared with other
parties.
Page 45
This is the second point at which to recall Assange's 12 June TV announcement of upcoming
"emails related to Hillary Clinton", coming two days before Guccifer 2.0's colleagues at
DCLeaks reach out to WikiLeaks via unencrypted means on 14 June 2016 to offer "sensitive
information" on Clinton.
Then, seven days after Guccifer 2 had already claimed to have sent material to WikiLeaks and
stated that they'd soon release it (which made it sound as though he'd had confirmation
back), we see that WikiLeaks reaches out to Guccifer 2.0 and suggests he sends material to
them (as though there's never been any prior contact or provision of materials previously
discussed) .
Page 45
How is it "clear" that both the DNC and Podesta documents were transferred from the GRU to
WikiLeaks when there is only around a gigabyte of data acknowledged as received (and we
don't even know what that data is) and little is known about the rest (and the report
just speculates at possibilities) ?
Page 46
We aren't provided the full dialogue between WikiLeaks and Guccifer 2.0. Instead we have
just a few words selected from the communication that could easily be out of context. The
Netyksho indictment did exactly the same thing. Neither the indictment nor the report provide
the full DM conversation in context.
(It certainly wouldn't harm HUMINT resources or expose methods if this evidence was
released in full context.)
Would the GRU really engage in internal communications (eg GRU Guccifer 2.0 to GRU
DCLeaks) via Twitter DMs? Maybe, but it seems insanely sloppy with regards to operational
security of a clandestine organization communicating between its own staff.
The statement that concludes on the following page (see below) also seems a little
bizarre. Would WikiLeaks really ask Guccifer 2.0 to DM DCLeaks to pass on such a message on
their behalf?
Why doesn't Mueller provide the comms evidence of WikiLeaks asking Guccifer 2.0 for
assistance in contacting DCLeaks?
As written, we are expected to take the words of Guccifer 2.0 (stating that the media
organisation wished to talk to DCLeaks) at face value.
It was actually the last-modification date, not the creation date that was recorded as 19
September, 2016.
This wasn't necessarily the creation date and is only indicative of the last recorded
write/copy operation (unless last modification date is preserved when copying but there's no
way to determine that based on the available evidence) .
The gap between email file timestamps and attachment timestamps may simply be explained by
WikiLeaks extracting the attachments from the EML files at a later stage. With the DNC emails
we observed last-modifications dates as far back as May 23, 2016 but the attachments had
last-modification dates that were much later (eg. July 21, 2016).
The wording is also worth noting: "Based on information about Assange's computer and its
possible operating system" [emphasis mine] does not sound like it's based on
reliable and factual information, it sounds like this is based on assessment/estimation. This
also seems to be relying on an assumption that the only person handling files for WikiLeaks is
Assange.
How have the Special Counsel cited WikiLeaks metadata for evidence where it's suited them
yet, somehow, have managed to miss the May 23, 2016 date on which the DNC emails were initially
being collected?
Going further, the report, based on speculation, suggests that the GRU staged releases in
July (for DNC emails) and September (for Podesta emails). However, going off the same logic as
the Special Counsel, with last-modification dates indicating when the email files are "staged",
the evidence would theoretically point to the DNC emails being "staged" in May 2016).
It doesn't seem so reliable when the rule is applied multilaterally.
Of course, if both assumptions about staging dates are true, then we're left wondering what
Julian Assange could have been talking about on June 12, 2016 when mentioning having emails
relating to Hillary Clinton.
The speculation in the final paragraph of the above section also shows us that the Special
Counsel lacks certainty on sources.
Page 48
Really, this correlation of dates (March 21, 2016 and the reported phishing incident
relating to March 19, 2016) is one of the best arguments for saying that emails published
by WikiLeaks were acquired through phishing or hacking incidents reported.
However, this merely suggests the method of acquisition, it says nothing of how the material
got to WikiLeaks. We can make assumptions, but that's all we can do because the available
evidence is circumstantial rather than conclusive.
Page 48
Far from "discredit[ing] WikiLeaks' claims about the source of the material it posted", the
file transfer evidence doesn't conclusively demonstrate that WikiLeaks published anything sent
to it by Guccifer 2.0 or DCLeaks.
Although there are hints that what was sent by Guccifer 2.0 related to the DNC, we don't
know if this contained DNC emails or the other DNC related content he later released and shared
with others.
"The statements about Seth Rich implied falsely that he had been the source of the stolen
DNC emails" is itself a false statement. The reason Assange gave for offering a reward for
information leading to the conviction of Seth Rich's killers was "Our sources take risks and
they become concerned when they see things occurring like that [the death of DNC worker Seth
Rich]... We have to understand how high the stakes are in the United States" ( source ) .
This implies WikiLeaks is offering the reward for info about Seth Rich at the behest of its
actual source/s.
Page 49
By the time Trump had made the statements cited above, it was already assumed that Hillary
had been hacked by the Russians, so Trump saying he hoped the Russians would find the emails
seems more likely to have been in reference to what he assumed was already in their
possession.
What is being described here is, to a considerable extent, just common exploit scanning on
web services, scanning that will almost certainly have come from other nodes based in other
nations too .
These scans are typically done via compromised machines, often with machines that are in
nations completely separate to the nationality of those running the scanning effort.
The Department of Homeland Security threw
cold water on this a long time ago.
DHS would not characterize these efforts as attacks, only "simple scanning ... which occurs
all the time".
The remaining pages in this section of the report include a lot of redactions and mostly
cover the actions of individuals in the US in relation to communications they had with or in
relation to WikiLeaks. As this article is about the technical claims made in relation to
hacking and so much is redacted, we'll only look at those really relevant to this.
[The remaining pages in this section have little relevance to the technical aspects of
this section of the report and/or acquisition of materials that this article is intended to
cover.]
While the above does show numerous issues with the report, it's important not to fall into
the trap of outright dismissing as false anything for which evidence is lacking or assuming
there is no evidence at all to support assertions.
However, without knowing what evidence exists we're left to make assumptions about whether
it's conclusive or circumstantial, we don't know if the source of evidence is dependable and
it's clear in the report that the Special Counsel has relied on assumptions and made numerous
statements on the basis of presuppositions.
There is also a considerable amount of circumstantial evidence that, although it doesn't
conclusively prove what the report tries to convince us of, it does at least raise questions
about relationships between different entities, especially with regards to any overlaps in
resources and infrastructure used.
For example, based on the cited evidence, it is perfectly understandable that people will
assume Guccifer 2.0 provided DNC emails to WikiLeaks and will also assume that WikiLeaks
published whatever it was that Guccifer 2.0 had sent them (especially with Mueller
presenting that conversation in the form of a couple of words devoid of all context) .
The apparent overlap between a VPN service used by Guccifer 2.0 and by DCLeaks does suggest
the two could be associated beyond Guccifer 2.0 just being a source of leaks for them.
Also, DCLeaks publishing some DNC emails that later appeared in the DNC email collection
(though not necessarily from the same mailboxes) also suggests that DCLeaks and WikiLeaks could
have had access to some of the same material and/or sources.
The same is true for Guccifer 2.0 releasing Podesta and DNC email attachments before
WikiLeaks released both collections. Unless given good reason to consider any ulterior motive,
the implied explanation, on the surface, seems to be that it was this persona that was a source
for those emails. If nothing else, that's how it appears based on the little information
typically made available to us by the mainstream press.
However, despite all of this, we still have not seen conclusive evidence showing that either
of the entities was really controlled by the GRU and, when the countervailing evidence
(which seems to have been completely ignored by the Special Counsel's investigation) is
considered, there is reason to give consideration to Guccifer 2.0's efforts to not just
associate himself with WikiLeaks and DCLeaks but also to associate third parties with each
other through false claims.
The Mystery Of The May 23, 2016 Omission
One of the most notable omissions is the date on which emails from several mailboxes
(including Luis Miranda's) were originally collected.
Not only is this prior to the May 25, 2016 - June 1, 2016 timeframe given for the DNC's
exchange server being hacked, this activity is unmentioned throughout the entire report.
How has this failed to come to the surface when it should have been apparent in evidence
CrowdStrike provided to the FBI and also apparent based on the WikiLeaks metadata? How is it
the Special Counsel can cite some of the metadata in relation to WikiLeaks releases yet somehow
manage to miss this?
Countervailing Evidence
What the Special Counsel's investigation also seems to have completely disregarded is the
volume of countervailing evidence that has been discovered by several independent researchers
in relation to the Guccifer 2.0 persona.
It's worth considering what evidence the Special Counsel has brought to the surface and
comparing it with the evidence that has come to the surface as a result of discoveries being
made by independent researchers over the past two years and the differences between the two
sets of evidence (especially with regards to falsifiability and verifiability of
evidence) .
Some excellent examples are covered in the following articles:
Skip Folden (who introduced me to VIPS members and has been a good friend ever since)
recently shared with me his assessment of problems with the current attribution methods being
relied on by the Special Counsel and others.
It covered several important points and was far more concise than anything I would have
written, so, with his permission, I'm publishing his comments on this topic:
No basis whatsoever
APT28, aka Fancy Bear, Sofacy, Strontium, Pawn Storm, Sednit, etc., and APT29, aka Cozy
Bear, Cozy Duke, Monkeys, CozyCar,The Dukes, etc., are used as 'proof' of Russia 'hacking' by
Russian Intelligence agencies GRU and FSB respectively.
There is no basis whatsoever to attribute the use of known intrusion elements to Russia,
not even if they were once reverse routed to Russia, which claim has never been made by NSA
or any other of our IC.
On June 15, 2016 Dmitri Alperovitch himself, in an Atlantic Council article, gave only
"medium-level of confidence that Fancy Bear is GRU" and "low-level of confidence that Cozy
Bear is FSB." These assessments, from the main source himself, that either APT is Russian
intelligence, averages 37%-38% [(50 + 25) / 2].
Exclusivity :
None of the technical indicators, e.g., intrusion tools (such as X-Agent, X-Tunnel),
facilities, tactics, techniques, or procedures, etc., of the 28 and 29 APTs can be uniquely
attributed to Russia, even if one or more had ever been trace routed to Russia. Once an
element of a set of intrusion tools is used in the public domain it can be reverse-engineered
and used by other groups which precludes the assumption of exclusivity in future use. The
proof that any of these tools have never been reverse engineered and used by others is left
to the student - or prosecutor.
Using targets
Also, targets have been used as basis for attributing intrusions to Russia, and that is
pure nonsense. Both many state and non-state players have deep interests in the same targets
and have the technical expertise to launch intrusions. In Grizzly Steppe, page 2, second
paragraph, beginning with, "Both groups have historically targeted ...," is there anything in
that paragraph which can be claimed as unique to Russia or which excludes all other major
state players in the world or any of the non-state organizations? No.
Key Logger Consideration
On the subject of naming specific GRU officers initiating specific actions on GRU Russian
facilities on certain dates / times, other than via implanted ID chips under the finger tips
of these named GRU officers, the logical assumption would be by installed key logger
capabilities, physical or malware, on one or more GRU Russian computers.
The GRU is a highly advanced Russian intelligence unit. It would be very surprising were
the GRU open to any method used to install key logger capabilities. It would be even more
surprising, if not beyond comprehension that the GRU did not scan all systems upon start-up
and in real time, including key logger protection and anomalies of performance degradation
and data transmissions.
Foreign intelligence source
Other option would be via a foreign intelligence unit source with local GRU access. Any
such would be quite anti-Russian and be another nail in the coffin of any chain of evidence /
custody validity at Russian site.
Chain Of Custody - Without An Anchor There Is No Chain
Another big problem with the whole RussiaGate investigation is the reliance on a private
firm, hired by the DNC, to be the source of evidence.
As I don't have a good understanding of US law and processes surrounding evidence collection
and handling, I will, again, defer to something that my aforementioned contact shared:
Chain of Evidence / Custody at US end, i.e., DNC and related computing facilities
Summary: There is no US end Chain of Evidence / Custody
The anchor of any chain of evidence custody is the on-site crime scene investigation of a
jurisdictional law enforcement agency and neutral jurisdictional forensic team which
investigate, discover, identify where possible, log, mark, package, seal, or takes images
there of, of all identified elements of potential evidence as discovered at the scene of a
crime by the authorized teams. The chain of this anchor is then the careful, documented
movement of each element of captured evidence from crime scene to court.
In the case of the alleged series of intrusions into the DNC computing facilities, there
is no anchor to any chain of evidence / custody.
There has been no claim that any jurisdictional law enforcement agency was allowed access
to the DNC computing facilities. The FBI was denied access to DNC facilities, thereby
supposedly denying the FBI the ability to conduct any on-site investigation of the alleged
crime scene for discovery or collection of evidence.
Nor did the FBI exercise its authority to investigate the crime scene of a purported
federal crime. Since when does the FBI need permission to investigate an alleged crime site
where it is claimed a foreign government's intelligence attacked political files in order to
interfere in a US presidential election?
Instead, the FBI accepted images of purported crime scene evidence from a contractor hired
by and, therefore, working for the DNC. On July 05, 2017 a Crowdstrike statement said that
they had provided "... forensic images of the DNC system to the FBI." It was not stated when
these images were provided. Crowdstrike was working for the DNC as a contractor at the
time.
This scenario is analogous to an employee of a crime scene owner telling law enforcement,
"Trust me; I have examined the crime scene for you and here's what I've found. It's not
necessary for you to see the crime scene."
Crowdstrike cannot be accepted as a neutral forensic organization. It was working for and
being paid by the DNC. It is neither a law enforcement agency nor a federal forensic
organization. Further Crowdstrike has serious conflicts of interest when it comes to any
investigation of Russia.
Crowdstrike co-founder and Director of Technology, Dimitri Alperovitch, is a Nonresident
Senior Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, of the Atlantic Council. Alperovitch has made it
clear of his dislike of the government of Putin, and The Atlantic Council can not be
considered neutral to Russia, receiving funding from many very staunch and outspoken enemies
of Russia.
Summary: Not only was no federal jurisdictional law enforcement agency allowed to
investigate the alleged crime scene, but the organization which allegedly collected and
provided the 'evidence' was not neutral by being employed by the owner of the alleged crime
scene, but seriously compromised by strong anti-Russian links.
This issue of this substitute for an anchor then leads us to our next problem: an apparent
conflict of interest from the investigation's outset.
Conflict of Interest Inherent In The Investigation?
Would it seem like a conflict of interest if the person in charge of an investigation were
friends with a witness and source of critical evidence relied upon by that investigation?
This is effectively the situation we have with the Special Counsel investigation because
Robert Mueller and CrowdStrike's CSO (and President) Shawn Henry are former colleagues
and friends.
If nothing else, it's understandable for people to feel that the Special Counsel would have
struggled to be truly impartial due to such relationships.
Conclusion
The Special Counsel seems to have been impervious to critical pieces of countervailing
evidence (some of which demonstrates that Guccifer 2.0 deliberately manufactured Russian
breadcrumbs) and they have failed to accurately account for the acquisition of WikiLeaks'
DNC emails (missing the date on which approximately 70% of them were collected) , which
is, in itself, a stunning failure for a supposedly thorough investigation costing US taxpayers
tens of millions of dollars.
There should have been a proper, thorough, independent and impartial investigation into the
Guccifer 2.0 persona. The Special Counsel certainly hasn't done that job and, in retrospect,
looks to have been ill-equipped (and perhaps somewhat reluctant) to do so from the
outset.
This article may be republished/reproduced in part or in full on condition that content
above is unaltered and that the author is credited (or, alternatively, that a link to the full
article is included).
- The Washington Times
Updated: 8:38 p.m. on Thursday, May 9, 2019
Former FBI director James Comey said Thursday that he thinks President Trump likely has
committed crimes that could be cause for indictment once he leaves office and, were he not
president, likely would already have been.
In a CNN town-hall-style meeting, Mr. Comey was asked by host Anderson Cooper whether Mr.
Trump acted with corrupt intent to interfere with an ongoing investigation.
"It sure looks that way," Mr. Comey replied, saying he based that judgment on his reading of
special counsel Robert Mueller's report and leaning most heavily on Mr. Trump's order to White
House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Mr. Mueller.
"... This is problematic for Comey in light of Mueller's findings. There are strict guidelines governing when the FBI can task a confidential source or a government undercover operative to collect against a U.S. citizen. Normally this is restricted to a full investigation, and normally restricted to the United States, not overseas. ..."
"... There is a sense that Comey's team was not checking the boxes, did not have adequate predication, and may have tasked sources before an investigation was even officially opened. Barr should pull case files and dig in on this. ..."
"... In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence case ..."
"... James Comey is right to be apprehensive. He himself ate away at the soul of the FBI, not in small bites but in dangerously large ones. ..."
Comey adjudged the president as "amoral." He declared the attorney general to be
"formidable" but "lacking inner strength" unlike -- the inference is clear -- Comey himself. A
strategy of insulting the executioner right before he swings his ax is an odd one but, then,
Comey has a long record of odd decisions and questionable judgment.
"Amoral leaders [referring to the president] have a way of revealing the character of those
around them," wrote Comey without a hint of irony or self-awareness. Those whom the former FBI
director assembled around him probably rue the day they ever met the man. Most are now fired or
disgraced for appalling behaviors that Comey found easy to manipulate to advance his
decisions.
ADVERTISEMENT
Then, just to make sure his op-ed was odd-salted to the max, Comey mused that the president
"eats your soul in small bites." OK, let's step back for a moment: James Comey appears to be in
trouble. His strange, desperate statements and behaviors betray his nervousness and
apprehension. In a way, it's hard to watch.
Comey will claim that everything he did in the FBI was by the book. But after the
investigations by Department of Justice Inspector General
Michael Horowitz and U.S. Attorney
John Huber , along with Barr's promised examination, are completed, Comey's mishandling of
the FBI and legal processes likely will be fully exposed.
Ideally, Barr's examination will aggregate information that addresses three primary
streams.
The first will be whether the investigations into both presidential nominees and the Trump
campaign were adequately, in Barr's words, "predicated." This means he will examine whether
there was sufficient justification under existing guidelines for the FBI to have started an
investigation in the first place.
The Mueller report's conclusions make this a fair question for the counterintelligence
investigation of the Trump campaign. Comey's own pronouncement, that the
Clinton email case was unprosecutable, makes it a fair question for that investigation.
The second will be whether Comey's team obeyed long-established investigative guidelines
while conducting the investigations and, specifically, if there was
sufficient, truthful justification to lawfully conduct electronic surveillance of an
American citizen.
The third will be an examination of whether Comey was unduly influenced by political agendas
emanating from the previous White House and its director of national intelligence, CIA director
and attorney general. This, above all, is what's causing the 360-degree head spins.
There are early indicators that troubling behaviors may have occurred in all three
scenarios. Barr will want to zero in on a particular area of concern: the use by the FBI of
confidential human sources, whether its own or those offered up by the then-CIA director.
Without diving into the weeds, it's important to understand that FBI counterintelligence
investigations generally proceed sequentially from what is called a preliminary investigation
or inquiry (PI) to a full investigation (FI). To move from a PI to an FI requires substantial
information -- predication -- indicating investigative targets acted as agents of a foreign
power.
This is problematic for Comey in light of Mueller's findings. There are strict guidelines
governing when the FBI can task a confidential source or a government undercover operative to
collect against a U.S. citizen. Normally this is restricted to a full investigation, and
normally restricted to the United States, not overseas.
There is a sense that Comey's team was not checking the boxes, did not have adequate
predication, and may have tasked sources before an investigation was even officially opened.
Barr should pull case files and dig in on this.
In addition, the cast of characters leveraged by the FBI against the Trump campaign all
appear to have their genesis as CIA sources ("assets," in agency vernacular) shared at times
with the FBI. From Stefan Halper and possibly Joseph Mifsud, to Christopher Steele, to Carter
Page himself, and now a mysterious "government investigator" posing as Halper's assistant and
cited in The New York Times article, legitimate questions arise as to whether Comey was
manipulated into furthering a CIA political operation more than an FBI counterintelligence
case.
Some in the media have suggested that the Times article was an attempt by the FBI to justify
its early confidential source actions. But current FBI Director Christopher Wray has shown that
he would like to excise the cancerous tumor that grew during Comey's time and not just keep
smoking. It's hard to imagine current FBI executives trying to justify past malfeasance.
James Comey is right to be apprehensive. He himself ate away at the soul of the FBI, not in
small bites but in dangerously large ones. It was a dinner for one, though: His actions are not
indicative of the real FBI. The attorney general's comprehensive examination is welcome and, if
done honestly and dispassionately, it will protect future presidential candidates of both
parties and redeem the valuable soul of the FBI.
Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI
special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a
founder and principal of NewStreet Global
Solutions , which consults with private companies and public-safety agencies on strategic
mission technologies.
Peter Strzok, his
little girlfriend Lisa Page, Andy McCabe, John Brennan, Sally Yates & Bruce Ohr immediately come to mind.
Horowitz is investigating those FISA warrant applications & Barr is investigating the origins of the Russia
collusion delusion.
Investigate them, arrest them the same way Roger Stone was arrested & interrogate them the same way Michael
Flynn was interrogated. Then offer them a deal.
If they flip on their lords & masters at the DNC, they get one weekend in a country club prison. If they don't
flip, they get 20 years in a real prison.
The next 18 months are going to be fascinating.
Neal
Stephen
an hour ago
This report reads, in fact, as if Trump was supposed to cooperate in his own obstruction. And because he
didn’t, he’s guilty of obstruction. ‘Donald Trump attempted to obstruct our coup,’ is how this should read.
‘Donald Trump attempted to obstruct our effort to throw him out of office,’ is how this report should read.
It’s made to order for people who want to continue running this operation to get rid of Trump. … The report
itself says there was no collusion.
We have a representative republic, and the popular vote doesn’t matter and it never has, by design. So all
these are just exercises in mathematics.
Hillary winning the popular vote by three million doesn’t mean anything, period.
If you want to have fun and if you’ve got some time, go to YouTube or wherever you go to find videos and
find election night coverage and start at 6 or 7 p.m. Eastern, any network, and watch it for a couple
hours. And as you get close to 9 o’clock, you will see a 180 degree shift from an attitude of jocularity
and confidence and happiness.” Because this was it, this was the glass ceiling being shattered or cracked,
however you look at it, the first female president, Hillary Clinton, walking away with it in a landslide.
But then as they get close to 9 o’clock, panic begins to settle in, and they shortly thereafter realize
that it ain’t falling out the way they thought it was going to. And as they start fearing and realizing
that Hillary is gonna lose, it’s one of the greatest things you can watch. Go back and relive that.
Liberals must be defeated not convinced
Since you desire to know what crimes hillary committed, here is a list. I have a Top Secret
with a BI/Final. I handled TS Documents, and attended schools for other documents how to safe
guard etc. So I know what I am speaking about. Here Goes
1. She did not have ANYONE sign off on her personal computer as required by law.
http://freebeacon.com/polit...
2., In a thread from June 2011, Hillary exchanges e-mails with Jake Sullivan, then her deputy
chief of staff and now her campaign foreign-policy adviser, in which she impatiently waits
for a set of talking points. When Sullivan tells her that the source is having trouble with
the secure fax, Hillary then orders Sullivan to have the data stripped of its markings and
sent through a non-secure channel.
http://hotair.com/archives/...
Under 18 USC 793 subsection F, the information does not have to be classified to count as a
violation. The intelligence source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity citing the
sensitivity of the ongoing probe, said the subsection requires the "lawful possession" of
national defense information by a security clearance holder who "through gross negligence,"
such as the use of an unsecure computer network, permits the material to be removed or
abstracted from its proper, secure location.
Subsection F also requires the clearance holder "to make prompt report of such loss, theft,
abstraction, or destruction to his superior officer. "A failure to do so "shall be fined
under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both."
18 USC 793: Continue
d) Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with
any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative,
blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense,
or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to
believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign
nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered,
or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated,
delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully
retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United
States entitled to receive it; or
(e) Whoever having unauthorized possession of, access to, or control over any document,
writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan,
map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information
relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could
be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation,
willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or
transmitted, or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated,
delivered, or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully
retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States
entitled to receive it; or
(f) Whoever, being entrusted with or having lawful possession or control of any document,
writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan,
map, model, instrument, appliance, note, or information, relating to the national
defense,
(1) through gross negligence permits the same to be removed from its proper place of custody
or delivered to anyone in violation of his trust, or to be lost, stolen, abstracted, or
destroyed, or
(2) having knowledge that the same has been illegally removed from its proper place of
custody or delivered to anyone in violation of its trust, or lost, or stolen, abstracted, or
destroyed, and fails to make prompt report of such loss, theft, abstraction, or destruction
to his superior officer --
Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
4. A former FBI agent, who is not involved in the case, said the inconsistent release of
emails, with new documents coming to light from outside accounts, such as that of adviser
Sidney Blumenthal, could constitute obstruction. In addition, Clinton's March statement that
there was no classified material on her private server has proven false, after more than 400
emails containing classified information were documented.
5. One of Clinton's primary defenses is that the emails containing classified information,
did not carry classification markings, but a leading national security defense attorney says
that is no excuse under the law. "The fact that something's not marked or that the person may
not know that it was classified would not be relevant at all in a prosecution under the
Espionage Act,"
https://www.law.cornell.edu... attorney Edward MacMahon Jr.
6. Of her private email account, Hillary Clinton said: "What I did was allowed by the State
Department, but it wasn't the best choice"That's dubious. Clinton has made this claim
repeatedly, but a State Department policy on the books when she was secretary said routine
work-related email use should be conducted on official systems.
But according to national security legal experts, security clearance holders are required to
speak up when classified information is not in secure channels.
"Everybody who has a security clearance has an individual obligation to protect the
information," said national security attorney Edward MacMahon Jr., who represented former CIA
officer Jeffrey Sterling in the high-profile leak investigation regarding a New York Times
reporter. "Just because somebody sends it to you you can't just turn a blind eye and pretend
it never happened and pretend it's unclassified information."
These rules, known as the Code of Federal Regulations, apply to U.S. government employees
with security clearances and state there is an obligation to report any possible breach by
both the sender and the receiver of the information. The rules state: "Any person who has
knowledge that classified information has been or may have been lost, possibly compromised or
disclosed to an unauthorized person shall immediately report the circumstances to an official
designated for this purpose."
"It is the Department's general policy that normal day-to-day operations be conducted on an
authorized [Automated Information System], which has the proper level of security control to
provide nonrepudiation, authentication and encryption, to ensure confidentiality, integrity,
and availability of the resident information," State's Foreign Affairs Manual states.
http://www.state.gov/m/a/di...
7.Clinton has violated at least two laws:
A. 18 USC Sec. 1924, which outlaws the unauthorized removal and storage of classified
information. Penalties can include fines and imprisonment for up to one year
B. 18 USC Sec. 793, this law covers national defense information and people who misuse it to
injure the United States or benefit a foreign power. Those convicted of violating this law
face fines and up to 10 years in prison.
9. U.S. Code 18, Section 1001, which pertains to "materially false" statements given either
in writing, orally or through a third party. Violations also include pressuring a third party
to conspire in a cover-up. Each felony violation is subject to five years in prison.
10. Whoever willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, or destroys,
or attempts to do so, or, with intent to do so takes and carries away any record, proceeding,
map, book, paper, document, or other thing, filed or deposited with any clerk or officer of
any court of the United States, or in any public office, or with any judicial or public
officer of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
three years, or both.
Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or
other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies,
or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three
years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office
under the United States. Asused in this subsection, the term "office" does not include the
office held by any person as a retired officer of the Armed Forces of the United States.
Yes, it explicitly states "shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any
office under the United States."
"... Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan. ..."
"... The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long? The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the FBI. ..."
"... McCabe and Rosenstein are enemies within! ..."
"... When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots only work under orders they don't think on their own. ..."
"... Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one of yours. ..."
"... The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail. These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards. ..."
"... Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions of power. ..."
"... Deep State poster boy. Full of hubris and entitlement. Power corrupts. ..."
"... McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected president. ..."
"... So McCabe appointed himself the FBI, Pratorian Guard, to protect us against Russia? ..."
Kevin Brock, former FBI assistant director for intelligence, and Terry Turchie, former
deputy assistant director of the counterterrorism division, fire back at former FBI Director
Andrew McCabe.
Well. There you have Andrew McCabe calling Rod Rosenstein a liar. Can't wait for the
Inspector General's report. Apparently some doo-doo is hitting the fan.
The FBI has history of sedition, how do you J. Edgar Hoover stayed in charge for long?
The FBI (Deepthroat, Deputy Director Mark Felt) brought down Nixon by leaking to the Washing
Post. This stuff going on now is part of a long standing tradition at the
FBI.
When law enforcement is involved in politics that is just like banana republics and
communist countries. If these people can plan to remove a Republican President they can do it
to a democrat president. THAT should alarm CNN and all the democrats, but it won't. These FBI
folks were acting under the orders of Obama and probably through Hillary. The FBI big-shots
only work under orders they don't think on their own.
Mccabe is a weasel beyond a doubt, and the FBI is complicit in there doing nothing
about it until the fool admits to it on primetime TV for the whole world to see!! He
tarnished your agency along with comey, strozk, and the other traitors. Own it FBI he is one
of yours.
The fix was in. The bureaunazis are so protected in their deep state they have no fear of
admitting their collusion efforts against Trump. A special counsel needs to investigate the
FBI and DOJ connections to Russia and Democrats. Nothing changes if no one goes to jail.
These bureaunazis watch too much Game of Thrones and House of Cards.
Mueller, while FBI Director, turned the FBI into an intelligence agency from that of a
crime fighting agency. Which was then used by the political class to support their positions
of power. Mr Trump upset their world with his electoral victory. President Trump is hated by
the political class because he has come as the destroyer of their world.
McCabe has totally self admited for a deep state coup attempt against a duly elected
president. He should be behind bars rather than selling his book on TV. Lock up McCabe,
Rosenstein and the rest of the Deep State coup gang and DRAIN-THE-SWAMP.
Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe discussed his career, the FBI, and his firing from
the Bureau. He was interviewed by New York Times reporter Adam Goldman.
"Once the Mueller report is put to bed, and it will be soon, this committee is going to look long and hard at how all of this
started," Graham said. "We're going to look at the FISA warrant process. Did Russia provide Christopher Steele the information about
Trump, that turned out to be garbage, that was used to get a warrant on an American citizen and if so, how did the system fail? Was
there a real effort between Papadopoulos and anybody in Russia to use the Clinton e-mails stolen by the Russians, or is that thought
planted in his mind? I don't know, but we're going to look."
There is definite some split in the US elite. That's why Trump survived the color revolution. This is actually
debate about future for the USA neoliberal socisty and referendum of "Full spectrum Dominance" policies.
Notable quotes:
"... Attorney General William Barr told the Senate Judiciary Panel this week that he has assembled a team at the Justice Department to probe whether the spying conducted by the FBI against the Trump campaign in 2016 was improper, reports Bloomberg . ..."
"... Barr suggested that he would focus on former senior leaders at the FBI and Justice Department. ..."
"... As Bloomberg notes, Barr's review could receive a boost by a Thursday New York Times article acknowledging that the FBI sent a 'honeypot' spy to London in 2016 to pose as a research assistant and gather intelligence from Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos over possible Trump campaign links to Russia. ..."
"... During Barr's Wednesday testimony, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) told Barr " It appears to me that the Obama administration, Justice Department and FBI decided to place their bets on Hillary Clinton and focus their efforts" when it came to investigating the Trump campaign. ..."
"... On Thursday, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) issued a criminal referral for Nellie Ohr - a former Fusion GPS contractor who passed anti-Trump research to her husband, then the #4 official at the DOJ. ..."
"... The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign after a self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, Joseph Mifsud, fed Papadopoulos the rumor that Russia had "dirt" on Clinton. That rumor would be coaxed out of the former Trump aide by another Clinton-connected individual - Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who would notify authorities of Papadopoulos' admission, officially launching the investigation. ..."
"... They all play for the same (((Globalist))) team. NO ONE is going to jail. They are performers, vamping until the 'event(s)' come to pass, which will 'change the ******* subject,' bigly. NO ONE is going to jail. ..."
"... The Mueller/Russia charade has been obvious to anyone with half a brain for over two years. If you still believed it after it was exposed that Hillary paid for the dossier, then you are truly an idiot. ..."
"... It makes no difference what you think of Trump. I think he is a Zionist tool. But if you have not yet seen that the Mueller/Russia nonsense is 100% Hillary's butthurt doing then you are truly an idiot. ..."
"... Bathtub Barry did nothing about “Russian” interference. Absolutely nothing. Why oh why did Obama do absolutely nothing? Because he inserted spies into the campaign and the administration. And you think trump would trust a staff member at that point? And if he would of brought Kushner who he thinks he could trust you would of skewered him. Please keep making the point for all of us. https://youtu.be/ybvmu7kM8z0 ..."
"... We shall see. I'm not getting my hopes up that justice will be served. For one thing, Barr is keeping alive the RU meddled narrative. Now that could be either to pin it on Barry for not stopping it, but it could also be to keep Mueller et al. out of prison by lending legitimacy to the SC. ..."
"... Barr, Huber and Horowitz ..... We shall see. The fact that Sessions chose Huber and Horowitz does not make me confident that justice will be served. ..."
Attorney
General William Barr told the Senate Judiciary Panel this week that he has assembled a team at
the Justice Department to probe whether the spying conducted by the FBI against the Trump
campaign in 2016 was improper, reports
Bloomberg .Barr suggested that he would focus on former senior leaders at the FBI
and Justice Department.
"To the extent there was overreach, what we have to be concerned about is a few people at
the top getting it into their heads that they know better than the American people," said
Barr.
Barr will also review whether the infamous Steele dossier - a collection of salacious and
unverified claims against Donald Trump, assembled by a former British spy and paid for by the
Clinton campaign - was fabricated by the Russian government to trick the FBI and other US
agencies. (Will Barr investigate whether Steele made the whole thing up for his client, Fusion
GPS?)
"We now know that he was being falsely accused," Barr said of Trump. "We have to stop using
the criminal justice process as a political weapon."
Mueller's report didn't say there were false accusations against Trump. It said the
evidence of cooperation between the campaign and Russia "was not sufficient to support
criminal charges." Investigators were unable to get a complete picture of the activities of
some relevant people, the special counsel found.
Although Barr's review has only begun, it's helping to fuel a narrative long embraced by
Trump and some of his Republican supporters: that the Russia investigation was politically
motivated and concocted from false allegations in order to spy on Trump's campaign and
ultimately undermine his presidency . -
Bloomberg
As Bloomberg notes, Barr's review could receive a boost by a Thursday New York Times
article acknowledging that the FBI sent a 'honeypot' spy to London in 2016 to pose as a
research assistant and gather intelligence from Trump foreign policy adviser George
Papadopoulos over possible Trump campaign links to Russia.
The Trump re-election campaign immediately seized on the Times report as evidence that
improper spying did occur. "As President Trump has said, it is high time to investigate the
investigators," said Trump campaign manager, Brad Parscale in a statement.
During Barr's Wednesday testimony, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) told Barr " It appears to me
that the Obama administration, Justice Department and FBI decided to place their bets on
Hillary Clinton and focus their efforts" when it came to investigating the Trump campaign.
Depending on what Barr finds, his review of the Russia probe could give Trump ammunition
to defend himself in continuing congressional inquiries -- and in a potential impeachment for
obstructing justice. Barr told senators that Trump's actions can't be seen as obstruction if
he was exercising his constitutional authority as president to put an end to an illegitimate
investigation.
Barr's efforts follow two years of work by a group of House Republicans who have been
conducting dozens of interviews regarding the FBI's and Justice Department's conduct in the
early stages of investigation of Trump and his campaign. -
Bloomberg
On Thursday, Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) issued a
criminal referral for Nellie Ohr - a former Fusion GPS contractor who passed anti-Trump
research to her husband, then the #4 official at the DOJ.
On Thursday, Meadows said that Barr's "willingness to investigate the origins of the Russia
investigation is the first step in putting the questionable practices of the past behind us,"
and that the AG's "tenacity is sure to be rewarded."
The FBI opened its counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign after a
self-professed member of the Clinton Foundation, Joseph Mifsud, fed Papadopoulos the rumor that
Russia had "dirt" on Clinton. That rumor would be coaxed out of the former Trump aide by
another Clinton-connected individual - Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who would notify
authorities of Papadopoulos' admission, officially launching the investigation.
Barr says he wants to get to the bottom of it.
His review will examine the above chain of events that set the investigation into motion,
and whether any US agencies were engaged in spying on or investigating the Trump campaign
before the probe was officially launched .
Barr said he's working with FBI Director Christopher Wray "to reconstruct exactly what
went down." He said he has "people in the department helping me review the activities over
the summer of 2016."
Notably, Barr said his aides will be "working very closely" with the Justice Department's
inspector general, Michael Horowitz.
Horowitz is conducting his own investigation into the origins of the Russia investigation
and whether there were abuses when the FBI obtained a secret warrant from the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court in October 2016 to spy on another foreign policy adviser to
the campaign, Carter Page. -
Bloomberg
Barr will also investigate when the DOJ and FBI knew that the Democratic Party and Clinton
was Steele .
Behind closed doors all of these republicans, and democrats are laughing together,
drinking, having their steak and lobster dinners while the masses think that something is
happening for their side. More theater, more wasting time and money, always taking down
America from within, one day at a time! Government means force, violence, lying, thieving,
murdering, and those are it's best qualities.
So whom does the "probe" consist of? Who's investigating the investigators? This is kinda
like the mafia policing itself. In my opinion, this is all show just to make the plebs think
some form of justice is afoot. When lengthy prison sentences and executions for treason
begin, then we'll KNOW justice is being served. Same thing with the banksters.
They all play for the same (((Globalist))) team. NO ONE is going to jail. They are performers, vamping until the 'event(s)' come to pass, which will 'change the
******* subject,' bigly. NO ONE is going to jail.
The Mueller/Russia charade has been obvious to anyone with half a brain for over two
years. If you still believed it after it was exposed that Hillary paid for the dossier, then
you are truly an idiot.
It makes no difference what you think of Trump. I think he is a Zionist tool. But if you
have not yet seen that the Mueller/Russia nonsense is 100% Hillary's butthurt doing then you
are truly an idiot.
If Justice is not served in this case (and truly served, i.e. Obama impeached and
imprisoned) and some scum bag like any of the democrat candidates become president, it is
going to be the dark ages in the US, economically, morally and psychologically.
Because he didn’t trust any one because Bathtub Barry did nothing about
“Russian” interference. Absolutely nothing. Why oh why did Obama do absolutely
nothing? Because he inserted spies into the campaign and the administration. And you think
trump would trust a staff member at that point? And if he would of brought Kushner who he
thinks he could trust you would of skewered him. Please keep making the point for all of us.
https://youtu.be/ybvmu7kM8z0
We shall see. I'm not getting my hopes up that justice will be served. For one thing,
Barr is keeping alive the RU meddled narrative. Now that could be either to pin it on Barry
for not stopping it, but it could also be to keep Mueller et al. out of prison by lending
legitimacy to the SC.
Barr, Huber and Horowitz ..... We shall see. The fact that Sessions chose Huber and
Horowitz does not make me confident that justice will be served. We shall see, shortly I
hope.
If justice is not served the Republic is truly dead.
"... That report is going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and there are going to be criminal referrals in it. ..."
"... The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it... ..."
"... He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to [Attorney General] Bill Barr already. ..."
It is about the rule of law and privacy. The Obama administration for more than four years
before the 2016 election allowed four contractors working for the FBI to illegally surveil
American citizens -- illegally. The FISA court has already found that. There is the Horowitz
report coming out in May or possibly early June. There's another report that everyone has
forgotten about involving James Comey alone. That will be out in two weeks. That report is
going to be a bombshell. It is going to open up the investigation on a very high note, and
there are going to be criminal referrals in it.
The FISA court abuse is the center of this entire abuse of governmental power, and the chief
judge in that court has already ruled that the FBI broke the law and that the people at the
head of the justice department, Sally Yates, John Carlin, the assistant attorney general for
national security all knew about it and lied to the FISA court about it...
There's a hero in this story and it is not a lawyer. There is a hero. His name is Admiral
Mike Rogers. He was the head of the National Security Agency.
He [Rogers] discovered the illegal spying. He went personally to the FISA court and briefed
the Chief Judge and worked with her for months to uncover the people who did it. The FISA court
has already told the Justice Department who lied to that court and that has been given to
[Attorney General] Bill Barr already.
"... As Attorney General Barr has pointed out, including in his testimony on Capitol Hill, investigating an American presidential candidate is "a very big deal" and the Mifsud/Papadopoulos/Australian Ambassador hearsay hardly serves as adequate justification or predication. This is particularly egregious since the FBI knew that Papadopoulos never repeated to anyone in the Trump Campaign what Mifsud told him. And Mifsud is also a British intelligence asset, not a Russian intelligence asset, as suggested by Mueller's rambling legal partisans. ..."
"... Mueller, of course, never references the fact that Russiagate actually started way back in late 2015 when the British government started demanding Donald Trump's head because of his sane view of Russia, a fact acknowledged by Obama CIA chief John Brennan in his Congressional testimony ..."
"... MI6's Christopher Steele's dirty dossier was the driver of Russiagate and that Steele was a joint MI6, U.S. State Department, and FBI asset dating back to collaboration on the 2014 Ukraine coup conducted jointly by the Obama State Department, CIA, and British intelligence ..."
"... the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, were transparent British/State Department operations designed to plant and fabricate evidence, namely, Russian generated "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. ..."
"... Mueller completely avoided the real story, despite its public availability, in order to concoct his hit job. Each of these operations involved British intelligence personnel collaborating with Obama White House, the CIA and State Department. These entrapment efforts were designed as the pretext for creating and maintaining an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation in turn made the preposterous claims in Christopher Steele's dirty dossier, that Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russians, palatable to the journalists who repeated Steele's claims both before and after the election ..."
"... The Moscow Trump Tower project also consumes hundreds of words in Mueller's screed. It was created by long-time FBI and CIA informant Felix Sater and his childhood friend, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and was presented in emails by Sater in September of 2015 as a Russian project which would help elect Donald Trump President with Putin's assistance. ..."
"... Instead, Mueller's argument is essentially this: "if you take all of this together, maybe it amounts to something, but I can't decide, so Congress should just stick the knife in already." There is not sufficient evidence to charge a crime, Mueller says, but Trump has also not proved his innocence. ..."
"... Here's the CliffsNotes summary of the entire 448 pages: The President was under constant attack, including from within his own White House, in an obvious attempt to frame him up while claiming he was committing treason. He got angry and didn't sit silently by while Mueller and his minions tried to frame him up. He complained loudly. Sometimes he even asked his staff to figure out how to proclaim his innocence. Under no conceivable construction is that obstruction of justice. ..."
"... When Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in the waning days of his Administration, in retaliation for what his intelligence chiefs claimed was Russian "interference" in the 2016 election, the sanctions included implantation of a Stuxnet type worm in Russian state infrastructure. This might be considered by the Russians as a very hot potential act of war. ..."
"... First, someone from a tight circle who had viewed these transcripts, leaked the classified transcripts to the Washington Post's David Ignatius who wrote a loud column about Flynn colluding with the Russians to undermine Obama. That leak was a felony. McCabe then called Flynn as the article hit, saying that he was sending over two agents to talk to him about what this was about and telling him that involving any lawyers would be an encumbrance to a relaxed conversation. ..."
"... each time Comey met with the President he returned to compose contemporaneous memos of his conversations and to plan future encounters with a close group of associates who he characterized as a "murder board." Such activities clearly indicate that Comey was engaged in attempting to set the President up. ..."
"... Furthermore, the firestorm following Comey's firing illuminated the level of plotting against the President at the top levels of the Department of Justice -- Rod Rosenstein seriously offered to wear a wire to record the President and participated in discussions centered on organizing the cabinet to orchestrate the President's removal. ..."
"... Trump called White House Counsel Don McGahn and told him to raise Mueller's conflicts of interest with the Department of Justice and -- according to McGahn -- that Mueller could not be Special Counsel. ..."
Special Counsel Robert Mueller has written a 448-page fictional novel, grounded in treason, about the British/Obama Administration
intelligence hoax known as Russiagate. It is intended to preoccupy your mind for the next two years, at least through the 2020 elections.
It is intended to stir your passions to support your absolutely mad Representative or Senator in enacting further sanctions and supporting
the British drive to overthrow Putin's government in Russia based on fictional events which, for the most part, never happened.
The British sponsored and oriented intelligence services that sponsored this hoax have also started a campaign to ensure that
the same mad passions will destroy Donald Trump's quest for new and peaceful relationships with China. Congressional investigations
based on the "road map" provided by Robert Mueller are supposed to provide, on your taxpayer dollar, possible impeachment and, at
the very least, opposition research for the 2020 Presidential campaign. This would fulfill the British vow, openly set forth in the
December 2018 House of Lords Report,
"British Foreign Policy in a Shifting World Order," that Donald Trump must not have a second term.
But, most of all, it is intended to get you to doubt what is coming next. The President's allies have promised an investigation
of the investigators and a full accounting of how this sordid affair came to be. As
Conrad Black explains in
the National Interest , what is now known is that
"senior intelligence and FBI and Justice Department officials lied under oath to Congress, or lied to federal officials in
order to influence the result, and then reverse the result, of a presidential election. In terms of subversion of the highest
constitutional process, the selection of the president and vice president of the United States, this sort of activity, that Brennan,
Clapper, Comey, McCabe, former attorney general Loretta Lynch and others appear to have engaged in, is the last stop before there
are tanks on the White House lawn and military control of the media outlets. Mueller, having failed to do anything to address
the real crisis that threatened the country, failed altogether, and compounded his failure by his sadistic entrapment of General
Michael Flynn, and hounding of Paul Manafort and others, far beyond what was necessary or excusable, in an effort to extort a
false inculpation of the president."
As most know by now, the first part of the Mueller report concludes that there was no collusion between the Russian government
and Donald Trump's campaign to swing the election to Donald Trump. This conclusion occurred despite thousands upon thousands of hours
of fake media claims, fed by British and American intelligence leaks, which made it an article of fanatical religious faith to many,
that Donald Trump was a Putin dupe. According to Mueller's report, while the Russians tried endlessly to infiltrate and steer the
Trump Campaign, they didn't succeed. Undaunted, Obama Director of National Intelligence James Clapper appeared on television on April
18 to claim that Mueller found "passive collusion." That is not an unfair characterization of the McCarthyite premises of Mueller's
report. According to Mueller, investigation of an American Presidential campaign was justified because Trump refused to toe the British
line on Putin and Russia.
Here is how Mueller blithely reports it:
"On June 16, 2015 Donald J. Trump declared his intent to seek nomination as the Republican candidate for President.
By early 2016, he distinguished himself among Republican candidates by speaking of closer ties with Russia, saying he would get
along well with Russian President Vladimir Putin, questioning whether the NATO alliance was obsolete, and praising Putin as a
'strong leader.' The press reported that Russian political analysts and commentators perceived Trump as favorable to Russia."
Beginning in February 2016, the Report continues, the "press" began to report the connections of various campaign figures
with Russia, namely, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, and Carter Page. According to Mueller's report, Trump pursued WikiLeaks during
the campaign regarding the timing of further releases of Clinton Campaign and State Department documents, he said that he doubted
that the Russians hacked the DNC and John Podesta, he falsely claimed that he had no business dealings in Russia, and the Campaign
was involved in changing a plank in the Republican Party platform about providing lethal assistance to Ukraine. Contrary to this
lying account by Saint Mueller, we know that the "press" were being steered by a British intelligence originated propaganda campaign
aimed at preventing any U.S. accommodation with Russia.
Now that we know that the President is not a traitor, can we move on to address the thousands of opioid deaths, adolescent and
other suicides, flooded farmlands, and crumbling infrastructure which have been pushed aside as we were trapped within the walls
of this British created delusion? Well, no, according to Mueller and his Congressional toadies, Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff. Nadler,
who looks and acts like a venomous toad, stuffing himself into over-sized suits which have that oh so subtle Manhattan mafia cut,
vows to spend from now until 2020 redoing the Russiagate investigation. Schiff, who has constantly propounded the most fictitious
crap possible about Russiagate, is just too invested to ever be sane, if he ever was. Thus, the second part of Mueller's report attempts
to seamlessly switch the anti-Trump political narrative by presenting an entirely novel theory of obstruction of justice in which
the President knew he was innocent, while those investigating him, knowing he was innocent, sought to exploit Trump's emotions as
they rolled a full scale coup right over him, hoping he would cross the line into illegal acts. He did not, according to both Attorney
General Barr and Mueller's boss throughout this escapade, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Mueller also acknowledges this
by saying he can't charge Trump with obstruction of justice. But Mueller also takes a cheap shot, designed to inflame the Congress
and the public, saying he cannot "exonerate" the President either. In doing so, he impermissibly shifts the burden of proof, under
our Constitution, to imply that Trump must now prove his innocence. This is, of course, reminiscent of the Star Chamber.
When Donald Trump was informed by Jeff Sessions that a Special Counsel was being appointed, he said, according to Mueller,
"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked. Everyone tells me if you get one of these independent
counsels it ruins your presidency. It takes years and years and I won't be able to do anything. This is the worst thing that ever
happened to me."
Perversely, this absolutely true statement by the President, borne out by months of an insane inquisition which crippled his ability
to act, is cited by Robert Mueller's crew of biased prosecutors for the proposition that the President repeatedly skirted obstructing
justice. On April 17, Attorney General Barr said that Donald Trump confronted an unprecedented situation at the beginning of his
presidency. The President was attempting to form an administration, while his own intelligence community was investigating him as
an agent of a foreign power. Barr might have added that Trump knew -- and everyone else knew -- that "collusion" nonsense was just
that. They knew it all along. In such circumstances, there was never any ability, in reality, to charge obstruction of justice, which
requires a corrupt intent or motive. There can be no corrupt intent or motive where a President believes, rightly, that he is innocent,
that he is being framed up, and that a coup is underway. He fights back, to preserve both the Presidency and the Constitution itself,
breaking the rules of what Saint Robert Mueller considers to be appropriate conduct by those he targets – don't say or do anything,
just let us slice you up. All the while, the Mueller report makes clear, Trump's emotions about the coup are being recorded and/or
falsely portrayed, minute by minute by those who would sell him out -- some as traitors within, others, if only to save themselves.
That is the reality. It was never obstruction of justice. It was a psyop against the President attempting to drive him mad.
The British, Not the Russians, Tried to Swing the 2016 Election
Mueller makes three significant claims about Russian interference in the 2016 election. First, page after page of his report attempts
to paint an amateurish and small bore social media campaign conducted by the Internet Research Agency, a Russian internet marketing
and click bait operation, as exercising a hugely powerful lure on the American mind. Despite Mueller's indictment of the IRA, which
is pending now in Washington, D.C., and despite British intelligence's five year fixation on the IRA as the essence of newfound Russian
powers in hybrid warfare, this is a hoax.
Aaron Maté ,
Gareth Porter and others have demonstrated, conclusively, that the IRA spent minimal amounts of money on Facebook and Google
in 2016, for a campaign which barely mentioned either candidate. Only 11% of the IRA activity even occurred during the election period.
The IRA effort spent a grand total of $46,000 on Facebook Ads, compared to $81 million by the Trump and Clinton campaigns combined,
and $4,700 on Google platforms. Its most liked Facebook post was a gun-toting image of Yosemite Sam; its most shared Instagram post
said, "Click here if you like Jesus." Another favored meme featured Jesus counseling a young man how to stop masturbating. Otherwise,
the IRA's campaign was dedicated to creating revenue from themed t-shirts and LGBT positive sex toys. Mueller never explains how
this ad content impacted the election in any way, nor could he.
Mueller next focuses on the alleged Russian military intelligence hacks of the Democratic National Committee and John Podesta,
for which he has indicted 12 Russian GRU officers, secure in the knowledge that they will never appear in a U.S. courtroom to contest
the charges. The first fact lost in the sauce here is the fact that the files the Russians allegedly sent to WikiLeaks for publication
demonstrated, truthfully, that Hillary Clinton was a craven tool of Wall Street and that her campaign was illegally rigging the Democratic
primaries against Bernie Sanders's insurgent campaign. Further, the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, led by former
NSA Technical Director William Binney and former NSA cryptologist Ed Loomis, have exploded Mueller's entire theory that the Russians
hacked the DNC.
They conducted forensic studies demonstrating that what Mueller says about Guccifer 2.0 is fraudulent and that the claim that
a GRU hack of the DNC computers resulted in the WikiLeaks releases does not square with any science known currently to man. The download
speeds and file metadata point to a thumb drive or similar storage device and a human source, rather than a Russian cyber attack
conducted over the internet.
You might also ask
why Julian Assange and/or WikiLeaks were not indicted in Mueller's grand GRU conspiracy indictment . Instead, Assange was indicted
on a highly dubious charge involving the 2010 Chelsea Manning leaks which may not even survive a challenge under the statute of limitations.
Obviously, Mueller's proof of his indicted Russiagate conspiracy falls short. Indicting Assange for the claimed DNC and Podesta hack
conspiracy would necessarily allow Assange to prove that the Russian hack never happened, as he has long contended. It would expose
how James Comey and Senator Mark Warner intervened in Assange's early 2017 negotiations with the Justice Department, to ensure that
the truth would never come out. It was Comey, after all, who never secured the DNC servers for FBI forensic analysis, relying instead
on the forensics provided to him by Atlantic Council's Russia-hating CrowdStrike, the unreliable vendor to the DNC and the Clinton
Campaign. And it was Comey, it is reliably claimed, who relentlessly pushed the Russiagate narrative even after his lead case agent
told him after months of investigation, "there is no there, there." If Mueller pursued the logic of his own indictment and included
Assange in his fabricated GRU conspiracy, it would also have exposed exactly what happened after Bill Binney met with then CIA Director
Mike Pompeo at Donald Trump's direction on October 24, 2017, explaining exactly how the intelligence community was lying to the American
President. Binney's offer to collaborate in demonstrating what actually happened with the DNC and John Podesta has been successfully
blocked to date.
The last prong of Mueller's Russiagate plot involves all sorts of contacts with Russians who allegedly unsuccessfully reached
out to the Trump campaign, in order to seduce them. Here the report just lies egregiously. We are told that Russiagate started as
the result of a July 2016 report by the Australian Ambassador to London, Alexander Downer, to the FBI about a conversation he had
with a 28 year old Trump campaign volunteer, George Papadopoulos, in London. According to Mueller, Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor
with "connections to Russia" told Papadopoulos that the Russians had thousands of Hillary Clinton's State Department emails, and
Papadopoulos repeated this information in a meeting initiated by Downer. According to Mueller, when the DNC's computers were hacked,
the former Australian Ambassador to London remembered his early 2016 meeting with Papadopoulos in which Papadopoulos recounted Mifsud's
claim about Clinton's emails. This tidbit, according to Mueller, launched a full scale FBI counterintelligence investigation of a
U.S. presidential nominee. As Attorney General Barr has pointed out, including in his testimony on Capitol Hill, investigating
an American presidential candidate is "a very big deal" and the Mifsud/Papadopoulos/Australian Ambassador hearsay hardly serves as
adequate justification or predication. This is particularly egregious since the FBI knew that Papadopoulos never repeated to anyone
in the Trump Campaign what Mifsud told him. And Mifsud is also a British intelligence asset, not a Russian intelligence asset, as
suggested by Mueller's rambling legal partisans.
Mueller, of course, never references the fact that Russiagate actually started way back in late 2015 when the British government
started demanding Donald Trump's head because of his sane view of Russia, a fact acknowledged by Obama CIA chief John Brennan in
his Congressional testimony.
Nor does Mueller reference the fact that MI6's Christopher Steele's dirty dossier was the driver of Russiagate and that Steele
was a joint MI6, U.S. State Department, and FBI asset dating back to collaboration on the 2014 Ukraine coup conducted jointly by
the Obama State Department, CIA, and British intelligence. The Ukraine coup began a British march toward regime change in Russia,
risking nuclear war, a march which was rudely interrupted by the Brexit vote in Britain and by the candidacy and election of Donald
Trump.
The real story, the one now being promised by Trump's allies and others, is that many of the alleged Russian outreach efforts
cited in Mueller's report, such as multiple entrapment efforts conducted against Papadopoulos and Carter Page, as well as the
June 2016 Trump Tower meeting involving Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, were transparent British/State Department operations
designed to plant and fabricate evidence, namely, Russian generated "dirt" on Hillary Clinton.
Mueller completely avoided the real story, despite its public availability, in order to concoct his hit job. Each of these
operations involved British intelligence personnel collaborating with Obama White House, the CIA and State Department. These entrapment
efforts were designed as the pretext for creating and maintaining an FBI investigation. The FBI investigation in turn made the preposterous
claims in Christopher Steele's dirty dossier, that Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russians, palatable to the journalists
who repeated Steele's claims both before and after the election.
Like the Steele dossier itself, the dirt and allegedly Russian-sourced information about Putin and Trump did not originate with
actual Russian "dirt" or with actual Russian sources. According to well-placed Congressional sources, Christopher Steele's main source
for his dodgy dossier is a former Russian intelligence officer living in the United States. But, no former Russian intelligence officer
lives in the United States without reporting to the CIA. That is just a simple fact. There is also evidence that the Trump Campaign
was being flooded with FBI informants acting as "pretend" Russian agents as early as May. Mike Caputo has documented just such as
approach by FBI informant and Russian criminal Henry Greenberg to himself and Roger Stone offering "dirt on Hillary Clinton." Papadopoulos
claims that Sergei Millian, the alleged source of the infamous Ritz Hotel prostitute claim in Steele's dirty dossier, sat silently
as Millian's friend told Papadopoulos that Millian was working for the FBI.
The Moscow Trump Tower project also consumes hundreds of words in Mueller's screed. It was created by long-time FBI and CIA
informant Felix Sater and his childhood friend, Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, and was presented in emails by Sater in September of
2015 as a Russian project which would help elect Donald Trump President with Putin's assistance. It was pushed, and pushed,
and pushed by Sater, whose agreement to become an informant, was signed by none other than Andrew Weissman, Mueller's chief henchman.
Former CIA and State Department analyst Larry Johnson
has fully demonstrated this chain of fabrications .
As for the last portion of Part I of Mueller's Report, portraying efforts to secure peace with Russia and in Ukraine during the
transition as some sort of diabolical plot -- wow, just think about that. Can you seriously join Grand Inquisitor Robert Mueller
in treating efforts to establish the foundations for peace with Russia, as some form of criminal act? Or, as crazy former DNI Jim
Clapper calls it, "passive collusion"? This is, of course, the same Jim Clapper who claims that Russians are genetically predisposed
to attack the United States. As Professor Stephen Cohen, of NYU and Princeton, continues to reiterate, there are
immense nuclear dangers in stoking hatred of Russia rather than seeking
a just accommodation. Professor Cohen noted recently that in the history of election interventions by the United States into Russia,
even if you accept all of Mueller's preposterous claims, what the Russians are accused of doing here is equivalent to jay-walking.
Compare the publication of truthful information about Hillary Clinton rigging the Democratic primaries, a juvenile and largely ineffective
social media campaign, and numerous attempts to improve U.S. Russian relations, with the $10 billion the Clinton Administration provided
to re-elect Boris Yeltsin, in 1996, for example.
Obstruction of Justice
Mueller's 250 page plus screed about obstruction of justice focuses on 10 "episodes" where he says the President almost crossed
the line into what he considers to be obstructive conduct. Mind you, he admits that as opposed to most obstruction cases, there was
no underlying crime which the President was trying to cover up. There were also never ever any acts like those Hillary Clinton's
crew committed, such as smashing cell phones with hammers and BleachBitting computers. In fact, the White House gave the Special
Counsel everything he asked for, including notes of President Trump's discussions with White House Counsel Don McGahn, over which
Executive Privilege could rightly have been claimed -- and many lawyers believe such privilege should have been exercised. Mueller
interviewed just about everyone in the White House and on the Trump Campaign, with the President's blessing and his urging them to
"cooperate." From this cooperation, Mueller's minions concocted a hit job, designed to portray the President as unstable and irrational
and out solely to protect himself, concealing derogatory facts from the American people in statements on his Twitter account and
to the press. Nowhere, however, even in this entire rabid prosecutor's screed is there any act which the courts have recognized as
obstruction of justice.
Instead, Mueller's argument is essentially this: "if you take all of this together, maybe it amounts to something, but I can't
decide, so Congress should just stick the knife in already." There is not sufficient evidence to charge a crime, Mueller says, but
Trump has also not proved his innocence.
Here's the CliffsNotes summary of the entire 448 pages: The President was under constant attack, including from within his
own White House, in an obvious attempt to frame him up while claiming he was committing treason. He got angry and didn't sit silently
by while Mueller and his minions tried to frame him up. He complained loudly. Sometimes he even asked his staff to figure out how
to proclaim his innocence. Under no conceivable construction is that obstruction of justice.
Three incidents make the fraud in Mueller's tedious novel very clear. First, Mueller babbles on about the President's conduct
concerning Michael Flynn's firing, but he never references that Michael Flynn had been targeted by the British authors of the Russiagate
hoax, the circles of Sir Richard Dearlove and his friend Stefan Halper, way back in 2014. They falsely accused Flynn of a dalliance
with Russian historian Svetlana Lokhova at a Cambridge event both attended. What really flipped the British out about Flynn, however,
was his exposure of support for Al Qaeda and similar groups in Syria by both the U.S. and British governments. Flynn had been a target
of FBI investigation and surveillance based on British demands for his head since early 2016, if not much earlier.
When Barack Obama imposed sanctions on Russia in the waning days of his Administration, in retaliation for what his intelligence
chiefs claimed was Russian "interference" in the 2016 election, the sanctions included implantation of a Stuxnet type worm in Russian
state infrastructure. This might be considered by the Russians as a very hot potential act of war. Flynn, the incoming National
Security Adviser, had conversations with Russian Ambassador Kislyak to the effect that the Russians should not overreact to Obama's
sanctions, among other things. These conversations were intercepted, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and Mary McCord of the
National Security Division at DOJ, along with Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe, plotted how to set Flynn up for undermining Obama's
dangerous threats and actions.
First, someone from a tight circle who had viewed these transcripts, leaked the classified transcripts to the Washington
Post's David Ignatius who wrote a loud column about Flynn colluding with the Russians to undermine Obama. That leak was a felony.
McCabe then called Flynn as the article hit, saying that he was sending over two agents to talk to him about what this was about
and telling him that involving any lawyers would be an encumbrance to a relaxed conversation. Flynn couldn't remember certain
things the agents asked him about. They had the transcript of Flynn's conversation and never showed it to him. In the course of the
interview, Flynn made statements at variance with what he was known to have said in the transcripts. Nonetheless, the agents themselves
said that Flynn had not deliberately lied to them when they reported back to the FBI.
After Flynn was fired for lying to Vice President Pence and others about the Kisylak conversations, FBI Director James Comey claims
that President Trump pulled him aside and said he "hoped" Comey would let the Flynn thing go because Flynn was a good guy. The maniacal
Comey insists that the President's "hope" was an "order." Comey, the fabricator, had previously insisted that the President's alleged
request for "loyalty," at a point where all of Washington was talking about RESIST members covertly acting against the President
from within his Administration, was somehow equivalent to a mafia induction ceremony. Michael Flynn was subsequently convicted by
Mueller of lying to the FBI in his White House interview despite the fact that the original agents concluded that no such lying even
occurred. This was part of a coerced plea deal resulting from the fact that Flynn was bankrupted by the legal fees necessary to defend
himself against Mueller's inquisition, and threats by Mueller to indict Flynn's son.
Then there is the Comey firing itself. Comey's Congressional testimony, which Mueller never mentions, lays out that each time
Comey met with the President he returned to compose contemporaneous memos of his conversations and to plan future encounters with
a close group of associates who he characterized as a "murder board." Such activities clearly indicate that Comey was engaged in
attempting to set the President up. Comey told Congress and Trump that he was not under investigation in Russiagate but refused
to tell the public that, knowing full well that the President felt it was completely hindering his ability to act, particularly with
respect to Russia.
Mueller does disclose that, from the beginning, Trump railed against Comey because he was blocking what Trump he wanted to do
with Russia on trade and ISIS. In fact, Trump dictated a letter to Steven Miller firing Comey because he would not tell the public
the truth about Russiagate and because it was hindering his ability to deal with Russia. Trump's letter was rejected by White House
staff, including White House Counsel Don McGahn, who came up with the idea of firing Comey based on Comey's misconduct in the Clinton
investigation. The President repeated the real reasons he was firing Comey publicly and almost immediately after Rod Rosenstein's
letter detailing Comey's misconduct in the Clinton investigation was released, and did so again, in an oval office meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak. This is hardly the concealment associated with obstruction of justice.
Furthermore, the firestorm following Comey's firing illuminated the level of plotting against the President at the top levels
of the Department of Justice -- Rod Rosenstein seriously offered to wear a wire to record the President and participated in discussions
centered on organizing the cabinet to orchestrate the President's removal. Mueller never mentions any of this in his report.
Instead he adopts, wholesale, James Comey's claim that Trump fired him to hinder the Russia investigation, despite the fact that
the investigation was never hindered. Mueller also never references Comey's leaks of classified materials to a friend for media publication,
in order to trigger Mueller's own appointment as Special Counsel, or that everyone already knew, at that point, that there was "no
there, there" with respect to collusion with Russia.
Instead, the game was on to frame the President, to build the case Comey had not been able to make about obstruction of justice.
This proceeded through a series of calculated provocations and media leaks all designed to provoke the President into overreaction.
One of these is found in the episode involving the so-called attempt to "fire Mueller" which the media and Congress are salivating
about. According to Mueller's report, Trump called White House Counsel Don McGahn and told him to raise Mueller's conflicts of
interest with the Department of Justice and -- according to McGahn -- that Mueller could not be Special Counsel.
This call occurred soon after the Washington Post published a leak that the President himself was under investigation by Mueller
for obstruction of justice. McGahn construed Trump's words as an order to fire Mueller, even though, by his own account, no such
order to fire Mueller was stated. McGahn claims that he immediately decided to resign, although he never informed the President of
this. No call was ever placed to the Justice Department, Mueller was not fired, and Trump never repeated what he allegedly said on
one heated occasion to Don McGahn. Based on his drama queen account of this alleged aborted attempt at some undetermined act of obstruction,
however, McGahn is being hailed by the anti-Trump media as a modern Sir Thomas More.
The President denies ever saying anything like this and there is considerable evidence in the Mueller report itself demonstrating
that Trump's repeatedly pronounced distrust of McGahn was fully justified. The kicker here is that even if Trump had followed through
and fired Mueller, he would have been within his Constitutional powers to do so. There would have been plenty of political heat,
but no obstruction of justice, despite McGahn's ridiculous fantasy that he was being asked to re-enact Nixon's Saturday night massacre.
Mueller's report otherwise shows White House Counsel McGahn, a total creature of the Washington Republican establishment who attached
himself to Trump early in the campaign, keeping book on the President and taking notes on everything the President allegedly said
-- hardly something typical of normal lawyering.
So, despite this weekend's huffing and puffing of the Democrats and the media about the Mueller Report, it is important to remember,
first and foremost, that they suffered a bone-crushing defeat when Saint Robert Mueller's magical curtain was pulled back, revealing
a tale, full of sound and fury, but signifying absolutely nothing. Attorney General Barr will conduct a seminar for the children
in Congress when he testifies about the actual law shortly.
The real story, the one about the attempted coup and treason against this President and its perpetrators is coming, and it will
come fast. A big opportunity is presenting itself to crush the British apparatus which has haunted this country since the end of
World War II.
Act now, don't get confused by the heat of battle, and we can take the country back.
"... Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy." ..."
Who is taking the over/under on whether Barr will actually investigate the origins of the attempted entrapment of Trump in Russia
collusion and the roles played by key players in US law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well as the Brits & Aussie government
agencies therein?
I'm willing to bet that it will all be swept under the rug and that Clapper, Brennan, Comey, Lynch & Rice will not be testifying
to any grand jury. Barr has received multiple criminal & conspiracy referrals from Rep. Devin Nunes. However, Trump himself disregarded
Nunes recommendation to declassify several documents & communications including the FISA application on Carter Page. The question
is does Trump want to get to the bottom of the conspiracy? So far all he's done is tweet. IMO, Barr is the epitome of a Swamp
Rat.
"Let your plans be dark and as impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." – Sun Tzu
I have a feeling that President Trump will declassify and release the relevant documents in a manner that they will have maximum
effect. It is stunning that the entirety of federal law enforcement, intelligence, and State department embraced and fortified
Russian misinformation in their jihad against Trump.
This must never happen again. At least the operation was run by political hacks, former analysts who fancied themselves as
operators. Their ham- fisted prints are over this shit storm. Thank you God for Comey, Brennan, and Clapper -- the three stooges
of espionage.
I suppose that it's possible that AG Barr's DoJ will mount a serious investigation into the many tentacles ongoing governmental
debacle that began with the Lynch DoJ providing political direction and cover for Comey's FBI to lie down on the Clinton e-mail
investigation. Which came first, the cover up, or the capitulation, is not completely clear. Perhaps it was a hand in glove affair.
Suffice it to say that by any standard of competence, it was a faux effort.
In my opinion, what was not done should constitute the elements of an obstruction violation. It would be a difficult charge
to argue before a jury. Was the level of incompetence such that a reasonable person could not believe that it could not exist
in the FBI, that there had to be malicious intent?
Nevertheless, while it appeared to the Clinton partisans in the Obama White House, in the DoJ, the CIA, the FBI and overseas
in the UK, that the e-mail case had been quashed sufficiently to preserve the likelihood of Clinton's accession, they had enough
reservations to exploit a garbage pail of political dirt to take out an "insurance policy."
Once again the question, could they possibly have been so incompetent. "What the heck" appears to have been the launching pad;
Clinton's going to win anyway, Trump will be crushed under the unmaskings, leaks, and innuendo; and no one will ever find out.
But Trump wins, and the unwholesome political cabal is now stuck with an investigation of an incoming President whom they had
tried to frag on the skimpiest evidentiary grounds imaginable. And worse, he appears to be sensing there is something rotten in
the state of Denmark, and Cardinal Jim Comey is a shitty liar, and now he's out, and what is going to happen to this garbage scow
they've launched, now with Comey gone. How do they kill this thing? Worse, how do they kill the political riot this thing has
caused. They can't; they double down; they take out another insurance policy - Jim Comey's good bud, Bob Mueller with a posse
of partisan attorneys, many vets of the Obama DoJ, a couple of squads of FBI Agents, including two who were prominent in the e
mail case and the Steele inquiry, and a set up akin to a shadow DoJ. What could go wrong? They would hound the bastard out of
office.
Which returns us to the question of whether Barr will mount a serious investigation into the political scandal of the last
100 years, at least. I suppose it is possible, but right now I'm not optimistic. For one thing Barr appeared at the big press
conference with Rod Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein is at minimum a critical witness. There is every reason to suspect that Comey,
McCabe, Mueller, and Rosenstein conferred before Comey's leak to the NYT via a lawyer friend in furtherance of Mueller's appointment.
Going side by side with Rosenstein at this juncture doesn't augur well.
On the other hand, the continuing lunatic behavior of the demented left may give Barr no other choice but to sort the mess
out once and for all for the good of the country. We'll see.
The biggest take I got out of the Mueller report is that Trump is a sleazy character and that is not what I want from the president,
the Face of America to the rest of the world. Whether the Deep State went after Trump in an organized fashion is just noise in
my ears. To me that is just normal political infighting the same as Trump and other Republicans went after Obama for being an
illegitimate President as a non-citizen.
Sorry, but it IS NOT "normal political infighting" for the cabal to have sought and still to seek the overthrow of of the legitimate
head of state and government.
"... Meanwhile, Sater is still working for the FBI , according to two current FBI agents. Moreover, he has relationships with at least six members of Robert Mueller's team, "some going back more than 10 years." ..."
Felix Sater, the man at the center of a controversial email "tying" President Trump to
Russia while trying to work a business deal, has come forward in a comprehensive
BuzzFeed News Exposé, which if Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony Cormier and
co-author Jason Leopold hadn't verified - nobody would believe.
Sater went from a "Wall Street wunderkind" working at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, to
getting barred from the securities industry over a barroom brawl which led to a year in prison,
to facilitating a $40 million pump-and-dump stock scheme for the New York mafia, to working
telecom deals in Russia - where the FBI and CIA tapped him as an undercover intelligence asset
who was told by his handler " I want you to understand: If you're caught, the USA is going to
disavow you and, at best, you get a bullet in the head ."
... ... ...
Meanwhile, Sater is still working for the FBI , according to two current FBI agents.
Moreover, he has relationships with at least six members of Robert Mueller's team, "some going
back more than 10 years."
To this day, Sater continues to cooperate with the FBI and Justice Department, he said in
his statement to the House Intelligence Committee. He wouldn't disclose additional details,
except to say that he works on "international matters." Two US officials confirmed Sater
continues to be a reliable asset.
As for his regular life, when he relocated back to the US in 2010, he recalled, "Donald
said, 'Where have you been?'" Sater said Trump asked him to join the Trump Organization.
"That's when I became senior advisor to him," he said. The Trump Organization and the White
House declined to comment. - BuzzFeed
In effect, Sater - at least according to BuzzFeed , is more or less a rockstar opportunist
spy with a shady past, who redeemed himself as an asset for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) and the FBI. During the course of his work for the agencies, all unpaid, BuzzFeed
confirmed the following exploits:
He obtained five of the personal satellite telephone numbers for Osama bin Laden before
9/11 and he helped flip the personal secretary to Mullah Omar, then the head of the Taliban
and an ally of bin Laden, into a source who provided the location of al-Qaeda training camps
and weapons caches.
In 2004, he persuaded a source in Russia's foreign military intelligence to hand over the
name and photographs of a North Korean military operative who was purchasing equipment to
build the country's nuclear arsenal.
Sater provided US intelligence with details about possible assassination threats against
former president George W. Bush and secretary of state Colin Powell. Sater reported that
jihadists were hiding in a hut outside Bagram Air Base and planned to shoot down Powell's
plane during a January 2002 visit. He later told his handlers that two female al-Qaeda
members were trying to recruit an Afghan woman working in the Senate barbershop to poison
President Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney.
He went undercover in Cyprus and Istanbul to catch Russian and Ukrainian cybercriminals
around 2005. After the FBI set him up with a fake name and background, Sater posed as a money
launderer to help nab the suspects for washing funds stolen from US financial institutions
.
"... Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues (such as street murders in Mexico). ..."
"... The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving the FBI in 2005. ..."
"... Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins, is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI. All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration itself. ..."
"... Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations, particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the 1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at either. ..."
I made the mistake of listening to NPR last week to find out what Conventional Wisdom had to say
about Trump firing Comey, on the assumption that their standardized Mister-Rogers-on-Nyquil voice
tones would rein in the hysteria pitch a little. And on the surface, it did-the NPR host and guests
weren't directly shrieking "the world is ending! We're all gonna die SHEEPLE!" the way they were
on CNN. But in a sense they were screaming "fire!", if you know how to distinguish the very minute
pitch level differences in the standard NPR Nyquil voice.
The host of the daytime NPR program asked his guests how serious, and how "unprecedented" Trump's
decision to fire his FBI chief was. The guests answers were strange: they spoke about "rule of law"
and "violating the Constitution" but then switched to Trump "violating norms"-and back again, interchanging
"norms" and "laws" as if they're synonyms. One of the guests admitted that Trump firing Comey was
100% legal, but that didn't seem to matter in this talk about Trump having abandoned rule-of-law
for a Putinist dictatorship. These guys wouldn't pass a high school civics class, but there they
were, garbling it all up. What mattered was the proper sense of panic and outrage-I'm not sure anyone
really cared about the actual legality of the thing, or the legal, political or "normative" history
of the FBI.
For starters, the FBI hardly belongs in the same set with concepts like "constitutional" or "
rule of law." That's because the FBI was never established by a law. US Lawmakers refused to approve
an FBI bureau over a century ago when it was first proposed by Teddy Roosevelt. So he ignored Congress,
and went ahead and set it up by presidential fiat. That's one thing the civil liberties crowd hates
discussing - how centralized US political power is in the executive branch, a feature in the constitutional
system put there by the holy Founders.
In the late 1970s, at the tail end of our brief Glasnost, there was a lot of talk in Washington
about finally creating a
legal charter for the FBI -70 years after its founding. A lot of serious ink was spilled trying
to transform the FBI from an extralegal secret police agency to something legal and defined. If you
want to play archeologist to America's recent history, you can find this in the New York Times' archives,
articles with headlines like
"Draft of Charter for F.B.I. Limits Inquiry Methods" :
The Carter Administration will soon send to Congress the first governing charter for the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. The proposed charter imposes extensive but not absolute restrictions
on the bureau's employment of controversial investigative techniques, .including the use of informers,
undercover agents and covert criminal activity.
The charter also specifies the duties and powers of the bureau, setting precise standards and
procedures for the initiation ,and conduct of investigations. It specifically requires the F.B.I.
to observe constitutional rights and establishes safeguards against unchecked harassment, break‐ins
and other abuses.
followed by the inevitable lament, like this editorial from the Christian Science Monitor a year
later, "Don't Forget the
FBI Charter". Which of course we did forget-that was Reagan's purpose and value for the post-Glasnost
reaction: forgetting. As historian Athan Theoharis
wrote , "After 1981, Congress never seriously considered again any of the FBI charter proposals."
The origins of the FBI have been obscured both because of its dubious legality and because of
its original political purpose-to help the president battle the all-powerful American capitalists.
It wasn't that Teddy Roosevelt was a radical leftist-he was a Progressive Republican, which sounds
like an oxymoron today but which was mainstream and ascendant politics in his time. Roosevelt was
probably the first president since Andrew Jackson to try to smash concentrated wealth-power, or at
least some of it. He could be brutally anti-labor, but so were the powerful capitalists he fought,
and all the structures of government power. He met little opposition pursuing his imperial Social
Darwinist ambitions outside America's borders-but he had a much harder time fighting the powerful
capitalists at home against Roosevelt's most honorable political obsession: preserving forests, parks
and public lands from greedy capitalists. An early FBI memo to Hoover about the FBI's origins explains,
"Roosevelt, in his characteristic dynamic fashion, asserted that the plunderers of the public
domain would be prosecuted and brought to justice."
According to New York Times reporter Tim Wiener's Enemies: A History of the FBI , it
was the Oregon land fraud scandal of 1905-6 that put the idea of an FBI in TR's hyperactive mind.
The scandal involved leading Oregon politicians helping railroad tycoon Edward Harriman illegally
sell off pristine Oregon forest lands to timber interests, and it ended with an Oregon senator and
the state's only two House representatives criminally charged and put on trial-along with dozens
of other Oregonians. Basically, they were raping the state's public lands and forests like colonists
stripping a foreign country-and that stuck in TR's craw.
TR wanted his attorney general-Charles Bonaparte (yes, he really was a descendant of that
Bonaparte)-to make a full report to on the rampant land fraud scams that the robber barons were
running to despoil the American West, and which threatened TR's vision of land and forest conservation
and parks. Bonaparte created an investigative team from the US Secret Service, but TR thought their
report was a "whitewash" and proposed a new separate federal investigative service within Bonaparte's
Department of Justice that would report only to the Attorney General.
Until then, the US government had to rely on private contractors like the notorious, dreaded Pinkerton
Agency, who were great at strikebreaking, clubbing workers and shooting organizers, but not so good
at taking down down robber barons, who happened to also be important clients for the private detective
agencies.
In early 1908, Attorney General Bonaparte wrote to Congress asking for the legal authority (and
budget funds) to create a "permanent detective force" under the DOJ. Congress rebelled, denouncing
it as a plan to create an American okhrana . Democrat Joseph Sherley wrote that "spying
on men and prying into what would ordinarily be considered their private affairs" went against "American
ideas of government"; Rep. George Waldo, a New York Republican, said the proposed FBI was a "great
blow to freedom and to free institutions if there should arise in this country any such great central
secret-service bureau as there is in Russia."
So Congress's response was the opposite, banning Bonaparte's DOJ from spending any funds at all
on a proposed FBI. Another Congressman wrote another provision into the budget bill banning the DOJ
from hiring Secret Service employees for any sort of FBI type agency. So Bonaparte waited until Congress
took its summer recess, set aside some DOJ funds, recruited some Secret Service agents, and created
a new federal detective bureau with 34 agents. This was how the FBI was born. Congress wasn't notified
until the end of 1908, in a few lines in a standard report - "oh yeah, forgot to tell you-the executive
branch went ahead and created an American okhrana because, well, the ol' joke about dogs
licking their balls. Happy New Year!"
The sordid history of America's extralegal secret police-initially named the Bureau of Investigation,
changed to the FBI ("Federal") in the 30's, is mostly a history of xenophobic panic-mongering, illegal
domestic spying, mass roundups and plans for mass-roundups, false entrapment schemes, and planting
what Russians call "kompromat"- compromising information about a target's sex life-to blackmail or
destroy American political figures that the FBI didn't like.
The first political victim of J Edgar Hoover's kompromat was Louis Post, the assistant secretary
of labor under Woodrow Wilson. Post's crime was releasing over 1,000 alleged Reds from detention
facilities near the end of the FBI's Red Scare crackdown, when they jailed and deported untold thousands
on suspicion of being Communists. The FBI's mass purge began with popular media support in 1919,
but by the middle of 1920, some (not the FBI) were starting to get a little queasy. A legal challenge
to the FBI's mass purges and exiles in Boston ended with a federal judge denouncing the FBI. After
that ruling, assistant secretary Louis Post, a 71-year-old well-meaning progressive, reviewed the
cases against the last 1500 detainees that the FBI wanted to deport, and found that there was absolutely
nothing on at least 75 percent of the cases. Post's review threatened to undo thousands more FBI
persecutions of alleged Moscow-controlled radicals.
So one of the FBI's most ambitious young agents, J Edgar Hoover, collected kompromat on Post and
his alleged associations with other alleged Moscow-controlled leftists, and gave the file to the
Republican-controlled House of Representatives-which promptly announced it would hold hearings to
investigate Post as a left subversive. The House tried to impeach Post, but ultimately he defended
himself. Post's lawyer compared his political persecutors to the okhrana (Russia, again!):
"We in America have sunk to the level of the government of Russia under the Czarist regime," describing
the FBI's smear campaign as "even lower in some of their methods than the old Russian officials."
Under Harding, the FBI had a new chief, William Burns, who made headlines blaming the terror bombing
attack on Wall Street of 1920 that killed 34 people on a Kremlin-run conspiracy. The FBI claimed
it had a highly reliable inside source who told them that Lenin sent $30,000 to the Soviets' diplomatic
mission in New York, which was distributed to four local Communist agents who arranged the Wall Street
bombing. The source claimed to have personally spoken with Lenin, who boasted that the bombing was
so successful he'd ordered up more.
The only problem was that the FBI's reliable source, a Jewish-Polish petty criminal named Wolf
Lindenfeld, turned out to be a bullshitter-nicknamed "Windy Linde"-who thought his fake confession
about Lenin funding the bombing campaign would get him out of Poland's jails and set up in a comfortable
new life in New York.
By 1923, the FBI had thoroughly destroyed America's communist and radical labor movements-allowing
it to focus on its other favorite pastime: spying on and destroying political opponents. The FBI
spied on US Senators who supported opening diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union: Idaho's William
Borah, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; Thomas Walsh of the Judiciary Committee, and
Burton K Wheeler, the prairie Populist senator from Montana, who visited the Soviet Union and pushed
for diplomatic relations. Harding's corrupt Attorney General Dougherty denounced Sen. Wheeler as
"the Communist leader in the Senate" and "no more a Democrat than Stalin, his comrade in Moscow."
Dougherty accused Sen. Wheeler of being part of a conspiracy "to capture, by deceit and design, as
many members of the Senate as possible and to spread through Washington and the cloakrooms of Congress
a poison gas as deadly as that which sapped and destroyed brave soldiers in the last war."
Hoover, now a top FBI official, quietly fed kompromat to journalists he cultivated, particularly
an AP reporter named Richard Whitney, who published a popular book in 1924, "Reds In America" alleging
Kremlin agents "had an all-pervasive influence over American institutions; they had infiltrated every
corner of American life." Whitney named Charlie Chaplin as a Kremlin agent, along with Felix Frankfurter
and members of the Senate pushing for recognition of the Soviet Union. That killed any hope for diplomatic
recognition for the next decade.
Then the first Harding scandals broke-Teapot Dome, Veterans Affairs, bribery at the highest rungs.
When Senators Wheeler and Walsh opened bribery investigations, the FBI sent agents to the senators'
home state to drum up false bribery charges against Sen. Wheeler. The charges were clearly fake,
and a jury dismissed the charges. But Attorney General Dougherty was indicted for fraud and forced
to resign, as was his FBI chief Burns-but not Burns' underling Hoover, who stayed in the shadows.
"We want no Gestapo or Secret Police. FBI is tending in that direction. They are dabbling in
sex-life scandals and plain blackmail This must stop."
With the Cold War, the FBI became obsessed with homosexuals as America's Fifth Column under Moscow's
control. Homosexuals, the FBI believed, were susceptible to Kremlin kompromat-so the FBI collected
and disseminated its own kompromat on alleged American homosexuals, supposedly to protect America
from the Kremlin. In the early 1950s, Hoover launched the Sex Deviates Program to spy on American
homosexuals and purge them from public life. The FBI built up 300,000 pages of files on suspected
homosexuals and contacted their employers, local law enforcement and universities to "to drive homosexuals
from every institution of government, higher learning, and law enforcement in the nation," according
to Tim Weiner's book Enemies. No one but the FBI knows exactly how many Americans' lives and careers
were destroyed by the FBI's Sex Deviants Program but Hoover-who never married, lived with his mother
until he was 40, and traveled everywhere with his
"friend" Clyde Tolson .
In the 1952 election, Hoover was so committed to helping the Republicans and Eisenhower win that
he compiled and disseminated a 19-page kompromat file alleging that his Democratic Party rival Adlai
Stevenson was gay. The FBI's file on Stevenson was kept in the Sex Deviants Program section-it included
libelous gossip, claiming that Stevenson was one of Illinois' "best known homosexuals" who went by
the name "Adeline" in gay cruising circles.
In the 1960s, Hoover and his FBI chiefs collected kompromat on the sex lives of JFK and Martin
Luther King. Hoover presented some of his kompromat on JFK to Bobby Kennedy, in a concern-trollish
way claiming to "warn" him that the president was opening himself up to blackmail. It was really
a way for Hoover to let the despised Kennedy brothers know he could destroy them, should they try
to Comey him out of his FBI office. Hoover's kompromat on MLK's sex life was a particular obsession
of his-he now believed that African-Americans, not homosexuals, posed the greatest threat to become
a Kremlin Fifth Column. The FBI wiretapped MLK's private life, collecting tapes of his affairs with
other women, which a top FBI official then mailed to Martin Luther King's wife, along with a note
urging King to commit suicide.
FBI letter anonymously mailed to Martin Luther King Jr's wife, along with kompromat sex tapes
After JFK was murdered, when Bobby Kennedy ran for the Senate in 1964, he recounted another disturbing
FBI/kompromat story that President Johnson shared with him on the campaign trail. LBJ told Bobby
about a stack of kompromat files - FBI reports "detailing the sexual debauchery of members of the
Senate and House who consorted with prostitutes." LBJ asked RFK if the kompromat should be leaked
selectively to destroy Republicans before the 1964 elections. Kennedy recalled,
"He told me he had spent all night sitting up and reading the files of the FBI on all these
people. And Lyndon talks about that information and material so freely. Lyndon talks about everybody,
you see, with everybody. And of course that's dangerous."
Kennedy had seen some of the same FBI kompromat files as attorney general, but he was totally
opposed to releasing such unsubstantiated kompromat-such as, say, the Trump piss files-because doing
so would "destroy the confidence that people in the United States had in their government and really
make us a laughingstock around the world."
Imagine that.
Which brings me to the big analogy every hack threw around last week, calling Trump firing Comey
"Nixonian." Actually, what Trump did was more like the very opposite of Nixon, who badly wanted to
fire Hoover in 1971-2, but was too afraid of the kompromat Hoover might've had on him to make the
move. Nixon fell out with his old friend and onetime mentor J Edgar Hoover in 1971, when the ailing
old FBI chief refused to get sucked in to the Daniel Ellsberg/Pentagon Papers investigation, especially
after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the New York Times. Part of the reason Nixon created his
Plumbers team of black bag burglars was because Hoover had become a bit skittish in his last year
on this planet-and that drove Nixon crazy.
Nixon called his chief of staff Haldeman:
Nixon: I talked to Hoover last night and Hoover is not going after this case [Ellsberg] as
strong as I would like. There's something dragging him.
Haldeman: You don't have the feeling the FBI is really pursuing this?
Nixon: Yeah, particularly the conspiracy side. I want to go after everyone. I'm not so interested
in Ellsberg, but we have to go after everybody who's a member of this conspiracy.
Hoover's ambitious deputies in the FBI were smelling blood, angling to replace him. His number
3, Bill Sullivan (who sent MLK the sex tapes and suicide note) was especially keen to get rid of
Hoover and take his place. So as J Edgar was stonewalling the Daniel Ellsberg investigation, Sullivan
showed up in a Department of Justice office with two suitcases packed full of transcripts and summaries
of illegal wiretaps that Kissinger and Nixon had ordered on their own staff and on American journalists.
The taps were ordered in Nixon's first months in the White House in 1969, to plug up the barrage
of leaks, the likes of which no one had ever seen before. Sullivan took the leaks from J Edgar's
possession and told the DOJ official that they needed to be hidden from Hoover, who planned to use
them as kompromat to blackmail Nixon.
Nixon decided he was going to fire J Edgar the next day. This was in September, 1971. But the
next day came, and Nixon got scared. So he tried to convince his attorney general John Mitchell to
fire Hoover for him, but Mitchell said only the President could fire J Edgar Hoover. So Nixon met
him for breakfast, and, well, he just didn't have the guts. Over breakfast, Hoover flattered Nixon
and told him there was nothing more in the world he wanted than to see Nixon re-elected. Nixon caved;
the next day, J Edgar Hoover unceremoniously fired his number 3 Bill Sullivan, locking him out of
the building and out of his office so that he couldn't take anything with him. Sullivan was done.
The lesson here, I suppose, is that if an FBI director doesn't want to be fired, it's best to
keep your kompromat a little closer to your chest, as a gun to hold to your boss's head. Comey's
crew already released the piss tapes kompromat on Trump-the damage was done. What was left to hold
back Trump from firing Comey? "Laws"? The FBI isn't even legal. "Norms" would be the real reason.
Which pretty much sums up everything Trump has been doing so far. We've learned the past two decades
that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What
does bind them are "norms"-and while those norms may mean everything to the ruling class, it's an
open question how much these norms mean to a lot of Americans outside that club.
The USA doesn't have a legal basis either, it is a revolting crown colony of the British Empire.
Treason and heresy all the way down. Maybe the British need to burn Washington DC again?
Wondered how Comey thought he could get away with his conviction and pardon of Sec Clinton.
Seems like part of the culture of FBI is a "above and beyond" the law mentality.
Back in the early 1970s a high school friend moved to Alabama because his father was transferred
by his employer.
My friend sent a post card describing among other things the fact that Alabama had done away
with the requirement of a math class to graduate high school, and substituted a required class
called "The Evils of Communism" complete with a text-book written by J. Edgar Hoover; Masters
of Deceit.
In Dallas,Texas my 1959 Civics class had to read the same book. We all were given paperback
copies of it to take home and read. It was required reading enacted by Texas legislature.
So I'd guess you weren't fooled by any of those commie plots of the sixties, like the campaigns
for civil rights or against the Vietnamese war.
I can't really brag, I didn't stop worrying about the Red Menace until 1970 or so, that's when
I started running into returning vets who mostly had no patience for that stuff.
We've learned the past two decades that we're hardly a nation of laws, at least not when
it comes to the plutocratic ruling class. What does bind them are "norms"
Or as David Broder put it (re Bill Clinton): he came in and trashed the place and it wasn't
his place.
It was David Broder's place. Of course the media play a key role with all that kompromat since
they are the ones needed to convey it to the public. The tragedy is that even many of the sensible
in their ranks such as Bill Moyers have been sucked into the kompromat due to their hysteria over
Trump. Ames is surely on point in this great article. The mistake was allowing secret police agencies
like the FBI and CIA to be created in the first place.
Sorry, my initial reaction was that people who don't know the difference between "rein" and
"reign" are not to be trusted to provide reliable information. Recognizing that as petty, I kept
reading, and presently found the statement that Congress was not informed of the founding of the
FBI until a century after the fact, which seems implausible. If in fact the author meant the end
of 1908 it was quite an achievement to write 2008.
Interesting to the extent it may be true, but with few sources, no footnotes, and little evidence
of critical editing who knows what that may be?
Who he is is irrelevant. I don't take things on faith because "the Pope said" or because Mark
Ames said. People who expect their information to be taken seriously should substantiate it.
So anything the FBI does to get rid of him must by definition be ok! Besides, surely our civic-minded
IC would never use their power on the Good Guys™!
Ah yes, the voice of "caution." And such attention to the lack of footnotes, in this day when
the curious can so easily cut and paste a bit of salient text into a search engine and pull up
a feast of parse-able writings and video, from which they can "judiciously assess" claims and
statements. If they care to spend the time, which is in such short supply among those who are
struggling to keep up with the horrors and revelations people of good will confront every blinking
day
Classic impeachment indeed. All from the height of "academic rigor" and "caution." Especially
the "apologetic" bit about "reign" vs "rein." Typos destroy credibility, don't they? And the coup
de grass (sic), the unrebuttable "plausibility" claim.
One wonders at the nature of the author's curriculum vitae. One also marvels at the yawning
gulf between the Very Serious Stuff I was taught in grade and high school civics and history,
back in the late '50s and the '60s, about the Fundamental Nature Of Our Great Nation and its founding
fathers and the Beautiful Documents they wrote, on the one hand, and what we mopes learn, through
a drip-drip-drip process punctuated occasionally by Major Revelations, about the real nature of
the Empire and our fellow creatures
PS: My earliest memory of television viewing was a day at a friend's house - his middle-class
parents had the first "set" in the neighborhood, I think an RCA, in a massive sideboard cabinet
where the picture tube pointed up and you viewed the "content" in a mirror mounted to the underside
of the lid. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5onSwx7_Cn0
The family was watching a hearing of Joe McCarthy's kangaroo court, complete with announcements
of the latest number in the "list of known Communists in the State Department" and how Commyanism
was spreading like an unstoppable epidemic mortal disease through the Great US Body Politic and
its Heroic Institutions of Democracy. I was maybe 6 years old, but that grainy black and white
"reality TV" content had me asking "WTF?" at a very early age. And I'd say it's on the commentor
to show that the "2008" claim is wrong, by something other than "implausible" as drive-by impeachment.
Given the content of the original post, and what people paying attention to all this stuff have
a pretty good idea is the general contours of a vast corruption and manipulation.
Interesting article on the history of the FBI, although the post-Hoover era doesn't get any
treatment. The Church Committee hearings on the CIA and FBI, after the exposure of notably
Operation CHAOS (early
60s to early 70s) by the CIA and
COINTELPRO(late 1950s to
early 1970s) by the FBI, didn't really get to the bottom of the issue although some reforms
were initiated.
Today, it seems, the best description of the FBI's main activity is corporate enforcer for
the white-collar mafia known as Wall Street. There is an analogy to organized crime, where the
most powerful mobsters settled disputes between other gangs of criminals. Similarly, if a criminal
gang is robbed by one of its own members, the mafia would go after the guilty party; the FBI plays
this role for Wall Street institutions targeted by con artists and fraudsters. Compare and contrast
a pharmaceutical company making opiates which is targeted by thieves vs. a black market drug cartel
targeted by thieves. In one case, the FBI investigates; in the other, a violent vendetta ensues
(such as street murders in Mexico).
The FBI executives are rewarded for this service with lucrative post-retirement careers within
corporate America – Louis Freeh went to credit card fraudster, MBNA, Richard Mueller to a corporate
Washington law firm, WilmerHale, and Comey, before Obama picked him as Director, worked for Lockheed
Martin and HSBC (cleaning up after their $2 billion drug cartel marketing scandal) after leaving
the FBI in 2005.
Maybe this is legitimate, but this only applies to their protection of the interests of large
corporations – as the 2008 economic collapse and aftermath showed, they don't prosecute corporate
executives who rip off poor people and middle-class homeowners. Banks who rob people, they aren't
investigated or prosecuted; that's just for people who rob banks.
When it comes to political issues and national security, however, the FBI has such a terrible
record on so many issues over the years that anything they claim has to be taken with a grain
or two of salt. Consider domestic political activity: from the McCarthyite 'Red Scare' of the
1950s to COINTELPRO in the 1960s and 1970s to targeting of environmental groups in the 1980s and
1990s to targeting anti-war protesters under GW Bush to their obsession with domestic mass surveillance
under Obama, it's not a record that should inspire any confidence.
Some say they have a key role to play in national security and terrorism – but their record
on the 2001 anthrax attacks is incredibly shady and suspicious. The final suspect, Bruce Ivins,
is clearly innocent of the crime, just as their previous suspect, Steven Hatfill was. Ivins, if
still alive, could have won a similar multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against the FBI.
All honest bioweapons experts know this to be true – the perpetrators of those anthrax letters
are still at large, and may very well have had close associations with the Bush Administration
itself.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about the
Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences. The
Saudi intelligence agency role in 9/11 was buried for over a decade, as well. Since 9/11, most
of the FBI investigations seem to have involved recruiting mentally disabled young Islamic men
in sting operations in which the FBI provides everything needed. You could probably get any number
of mentally ill homeless people across the U.S., regardless of race or religion, to play this
role.
Comey's actions over the past year are certainly highly questionable, as well. Neglecting to
investigate the Clinton Foundation ties to Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments and corporations,
particularly things like State Department approval of various arms deals in which bribes may have
been paid, is as much a dereliction of duty as neglecting to investigate Trump ties to Russian
business interests – but then, Trump has a record of shady business dealings dating back to the
1970s, of strange bankruptcies and bailouts and government sales that the FBI never looked at
either.
Ultimately, this is because FBI executives are paid off not to investigate Wall Street criminality,
nor shady U.S. government activity, with lucrative positions as corporate board members and so
on after their 'retirements'. I don't doubt that many of their junior members mean well and are
dedicated to their jobs – but the fish rots from the head down.
As far as terrorist activities? Many of their low-level agents did seem concerned about
the Saudis and bin Laden in the late 1990s and pre-9/11 – but Saudi investigations were considered
politically problematic due to "geostrategic relationships with our Saudi allies" – hence people
like John O'Neil and Coleen Rowley were sidelined and ignored, with disastrous consequences.
The Clinton Administration had other priorities. You know, I think I'll let ex-FBI Director
Freeh explain what happened when the FBI tried to get the Saudis to cooperate with their investigation
into the bombing of the Khobar Towers.
"That September, Crown Prince Abdullah and his entourage took over the entire 143-room Hay-Adams
Hotel, just across from Lafayette Park from the White House, for six days. The visit, I figured,
was pretty much our last chance. Again, we prepared talking points for the president. Again,
I contacted Prince Bandar and asked him to soften up the crown prince for the moment when Clinton,
-- or Al Gore I didn't care who -- would raise the matter and start to exert the necessary pressure."
"The story that came back to me, from "usually reliable sources," as they say in Washington,
was that Bill Clinton briefly raised the subject only to tell the Crown Prince that he certainly
understood the Saudis; reluctance to cooperate. Then, according to my sources, he hit Abdullah
up for a contribution to the still-to-be-built Clinton presidential library. Gore, who was
supposed to press hardest of all in his meeting with the crown Prince, barely mentioned the
matter, I was told." -Louis J. Freeh, My FBI (2005)
In my defense I picked the book up to see if there was any dirt on the DNC's electoral funding
scandal in 1996. I'm actually glad I did. The best part of the book is when Freeh recounts running
into a veteran of the Lincoln Brigade and listens to how Hoover's FBI ruined his life despite
having broken no laws. As if a little thing like laws mattered to Hoover. The commies were after
our precious bodily fluids!
I'm not sure there are many functioning norms left within the national political leadership.
Seemed to me Gingrich started blowing those up and it just got worse from there. McConnell not
allowing Garland to be considered comes to mind
Thanks to Mark Ames now we know what Pres. Trump meant when he tweeted about his tapes with
AG Comey. Not some taped conversation between Pres. Trump & AG Comey but bunch of kompromat tapes
that AG Comey has provided Pres. Trump that might not make departing AG Comey looked so clean.
Assange actually undermined the key pre-condition of the Deep state existence -- secrecy.
Notable quotes:
"... Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich. ..."
"... The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US empire. ..."
"... HItchen's Razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence." ..."
I'm just going to toss this one here at the end because I'm seeing it go around a lot in the
wake of the Mueller report.
Robert Mueller, who helped the Bush administration deceive the world about WMD in Iraq, has
claimed that the GRU was the source of WikiLeaks' 2016 drops, and claimed in his report that
WikiLeaks deceived its audience by implying that its source was the murdered DNC staffer Seth
Rich.
This claim is unsubstantiated because, as we discussed in Smear 4, the public has not seen a
shred of evidence proving who was or was not WikiLeaks' source, so there's no way to know there
was any deception happening there. We've never seen any hard proof, nor indeed anything besides
official narrative, connecting the Russian government to Guccifer 2.0 and Guccifer 2.0 to
WikiLeaks, and Daniel Lazare for Consortium News documents that there are in fact some
major
plot holes in Mueller's timeline. Longtime Assange friend and WikiLeaks ally Craig Murray
maintains that he knows the
source of the DNC Leaks and Podesta Emails were two different Americans, not Russians, and
hints that one of them was a DNC insider. There is exactly as much publicly available evidence
for Murray's claim as there is for Mueller's.
Mainstream media has been blaring day after day for years that it is an absolute known fact
that the Russian government was WikiLeaks' source, and the only reason people scoff and roll
their eyes at anyone who makes the indisputably factual claim that we've seen no evidence for
this is because
the illusory truth effect causes the human brain to mistake repetition for fact.
The smear is that Assange knew his source was actually the Russian government, and he
implied it was Seth Rich to throw people off the scent. Mueller asserted that something
happened, and it's interpreted as hard fact instead of assertion. There's no evidence for any
of this, and there's no reason to go believing the WMD guy on faith about a narrative which
incriminates yet another government which refuses to obey the dictates of the US
empire.
And I guess that's it for now. Again, this article is an ongoing project, so I'll be
updating it and adding to it regularly as new information comes in and new smears need
refutation. If I missed something or got something wrong, or even if you spotted a typo, please
email me at [email protected] and let
me know. I'm trying to create the best possible tool for people to refute Assange smears, so
I'll keep sharpening this baby to make sure it cuts like a razor. Thanks for reading, and
thanks to everyone who helped! Phew! That was long.
We don't have to like Julian Assange, but the release of the "Collateral Damage" video
alone is enough to justify defending Assange and the freedom of the press.
She really didn't debunk the thing about Seth Rich very well. Basically just said that
whatever Mueller said wasn't true, which doesn't go very far for me. He definitely did imply
that he got at least some of his info from Rich so if there is some sort of proof of that, it
needs to be supplied; otherwise Mueller's story is the only one.
I have recently seen a political cartoon with Dotard then saying: "I love Wikileaks" + " I
will throw her in jail" and now saying: "I know nothing about Wikileaks" + "I will throw him
in jail"
It summed up perfectly that swine's lack of integrity.
It's so simple. Assange and Wikileaks exposed Hillary, Podesta, and the entire DNC to be
lying, deceiving, hypocritical, disingenuous, elitist bastards. His crimes are miniscule
compared to that, and all who attempt to condemn Assange only show us that they are members
of that foul group.
Excellent thorough content. And Kim Schmitz pointed out they'll drag things on for as long
as possible and try to add additional things as they go. Such a bunch of sad, pathetic
control freaks. Covering up their own failures, crimes and short comings with a highly
publicized distraction putting the screws to a single journalist.
“ Ty Clevenger has FOIAed information from NSA asking for any data that involved
both Seth Rich and also Julian Assange .
And they responded by saying we’ve got 15 files , 32 pages , but they’re all
classified in accordance with executive order 13526 covering classification, and therefore
you can’t have them.
That says that NSA has records of communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange. I
mean, that’s the only business that NSA is in — copying communications between
people and devices.”
Assange and Snowden are freedom fighters, exposing the duplicitous, corrupt, and criminals
to the entire world.
The hundreds of millions of mindless zombies are so brainwashed by the fake news industry,
that if Assange and Snowden are not spies, they are criminal in some capacity.
I have liberal, conservative, and libertarian leaning friends, and virtually every one of
them believe Assange and Snowden are traitors to America, got innocent people killed, are
rapists, or too cowardly to stand trial in the USA.
What has happened to common sense and some necessary cynicism?
Why even bother arguing with these people. Assange gave up his liberty to reveal the
truth, and the American public said in essence "so what." No one except the leakers and
whistle-blowers faced any punishment, and I can't think of a single national politician who
even talks about doing anything about the misconduct that was revealed. Yeah, a small
percentage of the population is outraged at what was revealed, but the vast majority
literally don't give a ****.
Hehe... I guess you will find out how wrong you are in 2020 :-) His release of Hillary's
emails gave Trump 2016... and him turning his back on Assange took away his chances in
2020
Most regular readers on ZH know but this is an echo chamber for "Always Trumpers" so there
won't be many commenters on this article. Rather than defend his DOJ's extradition attempts
with implausible theories they'll be chattering back and forth about the Mueller Report.
Agreed. It's amazing to me that people who claim to be believers of the MAGA message don't
see the harm associated with the arrest of Assange, and all of the other uniparty **** Trump
is perpetuating. A man sees what he wants to see and disregards the rest.
Yeah and yet.... everyone seemed to credit Hillary's loss to the release of her emails on
wikileaks... Hmm that narrative that seems to be trying to minimize the impact on Trumps
chances in 2020 really breaks down in the face of that fact doesn't it?? Trump has no hope...
just stop... get behind a republican that has a chance... Trump doesn't... he lost half of
his base... get over it...
"... While criminal referrals from Congress are often ignored at the DOJ, referrals from the Department's own Inspector General can hardly be ignored altogether. I anticipate that the release of the Horowitz report, expected in four-to-six weeks will be a bombshell. ..."
"... Cleanout of the corrupt, inept and ultra-partisan elements of the FBI and DOJ is long, long overdue. ..."
"... Maybe Assange was arrested to prevent him from testifying that he did not get the DNC emails from the Russians. He has always claimed that he did not get it from the Russians. ..."
"... There is much evidence suggesting an insider leak as opposed to a hack and the VIPS examination has the forensics to assert it, unlike Mueller who declared, without forensic examination, the emails to be hacked. ..."
"... There are 1000's of real reasons to take down Trump for his financial crimes. Defending the pathetic loss by Hillary Clinton on "Russia" and "Russians" is xenophobic, indeed racist, cold war propaganda. I suggest you stop drinking the kool-aid. ..."
"... In 2015 the DOJ-OIG (office of inspector general) requested oversight of the DOJ National Security Division. It was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates who responded with a lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, 'nope – not allowed.' All of the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the DOJ-NSD. ..."
"... Larry Johnson's separate comment is quite true. Just as gentlemen DO read other people's mail, governments have historically used their covert resources to interfere in other nations' elections to their benefit. Nothing new under the Sun in this. Fully agree that VIPS has made a strong case, along with others, that the DNC emails were just as likely obtained from someone on the premises. ..."
"... I recall Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign, when a small army of American political campaign experts flooded Moscow and virtually ran Boris' campaign from a Moscow hotel. ..."
With all the attention focused on tomorrow's release of the redacted version of the Mueller
final report, more attention should be directed at the upcoming report of Michael Horowitz, the
Inspector General of the Department of Justice, who is looking into misconduct by those who
foisted the Russiagate/Trump collusion tale. In recent meeting with two House Republican allies
of Trump--Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows--Horowitz indicated that he would be making criminal
referrals, presumably against FBI and DOJ officials.
While criminal referrals from Congress are often ignored at the DOJ, referrals from the
Department's own Inspector General can hardly be ignored altogether. I anticipate that the
release of the Horowitz report, expected in four-to-six weeks will be a bombshell.
Cleanout of the corrupt, inept and ultra-partisan elements of the FBI and DOJ is long, long
overdue. Horowitz is respected for his professionalism. He nailed the bias by some of the FBI
and DOJ people who totally blew it in the Hillary Clinton email probe.
It may take years--perhaps a generation--to do a genuine house cleaning at the FBI and DOJ.
But look for Horowitz to move that process ahead. Much more worthwhile reading than the Mueller
report when it is released.
William Barr's summary of the Mueller report included this section from the report:
"......The second element involved the Russian government's efforts to conduct computer
hacking operations designed to gather and disseminate information to influence the
election. The Special Counsel found that Russian government actors successfully hacked into
computers and obtained emails from persons affiliated with the Clinton campaign and
Democratic Party organizations, and publicly disseminated those materials through various
intermediaries, including WikiLeaks. Based on these activities, the Special Counsel brought
criminal charges against a number of Russian military officers for conspiring to hack into
computers in the United States for purposes of influencing the election. But as noted
above, the Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with
it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite
multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign
......."
It should be noted that WikiLeaks is under indictment by the DOJ for allegedly helping
Chelsea Manning hack into intelligence files - and potentially more charges may be pending
against Assange for his 2016 election interference and/or the release of Vault 7. The
indictment of the GRU which worked to undermine the Hillary campaign and elect Trump is an
important part of the Mueller report.
I'm not disputing that the FBI may have broken the law while investigating the Trump
campaign (as you indicate) - and may need to be overhauled.
Maybe Assange was arrested to prevent him from testifying that he did not get the DNC emails
from the Russians. He has always claimed that he did not get it from the Russians.
In any case it will be interesting to see the actual evidence on the basis of which
Mueller has come to these conclusions or assertions - that Russia successfully hacked and
disseminated through Wikileaks.
There is much evidence suggesting an insider leak as opposed to a hack and the VIPS
examination has the forensics to assert it, unlike Mueller who declared, without forensic
examination, the emails to be hacked. It's the lynchpin of the entire investigation.
One
need not be a Trump supporter in order to want the truth to be told because what can be done
to Trump can AND WILL be done to the next Democratic president (assuming there will ever be
another in my lifetime, not an assumption one should make without caution).
There are 1000's
of real reasons to take down Trump for his financial crimes. Defending the pathetic loss by
Hillary Clinton on "Russia" and "Russians" is xenophobic, indeed racist, cold war propaganda.
I suggest you stop drinking the kool-aid.
Why on earth do you credit any Russian involvement in the Clinton/DNC email affair,
when VIPS have conclusively demonstrated that those emails had to have been leaked by someone
with physical access, and that they were downloaded to a flash drive and therefore physically
taken away and then passed on to Wikileaks. There is no credible evidence yet presented that
would support a story of Russian involvement in that leak or its dissemination. FBI/CIA/NSA
are all partisan actors in this farce, and any credit given to their statements about
anything regarding this affair is profoundly misplaced.
As to Assange, the DOJ can indict a random dairy cow on any allegation they care to
invent, and it would have exactly as much meaning as the Assange indictment. Not saying that
powerful factions among our owners and masters don't yearn to kill him or at least lock him
away forever, but this stupid kabuki they are using to accomplish their end is vastly
insulting to even a minimal intelligence.
In 2015 the DOJ-OIG (office of inspector general) requested oversight of the DOJ
National Security Division. It was Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates who responded with a
lengthy 58 page legal explanation saying, essentially, 'nope – not allowed.' All of
the DOJ is subject to oversight, except the DOJ-NSD.
BTW, on the Disquis vs. Typepad comment issue, I like very much the ability
Typepad gives to preview comments.
Larry Johnson's separate comment is quite true. Just as gentlemen DO read other people's
mail, governments have historically used their covert resources to interfere in other
nations' elections to their benefit. Nothing new under the Sun in this. Fully agree that VIPS
has made a strong case, along with others, that the DNC emails were just as likely obtained
from someone on the premises.
Everything I've seen about the level of Russian interference in the 2016 elections was
low-budget, low-level and given the controversial nature of the Trump-Clinton election, I do
not believe evidence can ever be established that the Russian actions tilted the outcome.
A contact in the USIC told me at the outset of the so-called Russiagate probe that there
would be hyperbolic outrage and exaggeration of what the Russians did to make it more
difficult for foreign powers to do it in the future. Issue was not 2016, but 2018 and
onward.
I recall Boris Yeltsin's reelection campaign, when a small army of American
political campaign experts flooded Moscow and virtually ran Boris' campaign from a Moscow
hotel.
I hope the Democrats are collectively wise enough to let the Mueller report land and move
on. As one reader commented, the backlash down the line will further damage our already
hyper-partisan political climate and make bipartisan governance an impossibility for at least
the duration of this generation.
He's turned out to be a ziocon and Bibi's bitch instead. He's surrounded himself with
neocons. And he's also Wall St's bitch as his primary concern is stock prices. He wants the Fed
to lower already low rates and grow its multi-trillion dollar "emergency" balance sheet even
more. The federal government will add a trillion dollars to the national debt each year of his
term. Isn't this exactly what the establishment of both parties want?
In any case, the hammer needs to come down hard on the putschists, so that law enforcement
& the intelligence agencies don't become an extra-constitutional 4th branch of government
accountable only to themselves. We'll see how far the Trump administration will go in holding
these seditionists to account?
Highly recommenced to listen. Judge Napolitano is an interesting speaker (start at 41 min)
As CIA in the USA government organizational chart stands above the Presidential Office Hillary is really untouchable, unless the
Presidential Office is also occupied by CIA-democrat like Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... She absolutely thinks she is untouchable ..."
"... Every corrupt person was praised and given more power!!! Hillary sat back and knew of all the raping that bill was doing to kids teenagers young ladies boys young men and she never blinked an eye!!! If a simple tax paying citizen was to pull the bullshit that Hillary has pulled in front of Howdy that citizen would be see the lights day until Jesus came and took us home to Heaven!! ..."
"... Hillary Clinton actually says in this video that half of Trump supporters are "deplorable". That is equivalent to roughly 25% of the American population! That constitutes a very strong statement from someone who wants to be president of The United States. ..."
Congress is a waste of tax money, they have no power, so obvious! Criminal leaders just lie to them, knowing they can't do
a thing and most of them are paid off anyway, they don't want to do anything! Elections are rigged, so they don't have to worry
about, "we the poor, lowly people!" We are not even in the equation!
Why is this pathological liar Hillary still running around free ?? Isn't lying to Congress a felony ??? If this lowlife is
simply above the law lets change the laws !
Prosecute everyone of them that knew and allowed even the smallest bit of knowledge and make every one of them ineligible for
their pensions. They do not deserve those pensions, they stole them, treasonous acts against your government does not make you
eligable..they do not deserve it!!
Not only a habitual serial liar but a career Criminal! Hillary and Bill have been involved in illegal manners for over 40 years!
Hillary stated it best last year during the time of the election!. " If Donald Trump becomes president, WE WILL ALL HANG!" She
finally told the truth!
She absolutely thinks she is untouchable because not one person has been brave enough and bold enough to take her
down the Clinton's have been corrupt and evil from child good and they were taught from NWO that they will never be taken down
go child rob steel kill do everything in the power we Give you both and bring me all glory!!! We will let you control the United
States as long as you want!!!
All the connected deaths that embrace the Clinton's and not single piece of evidence is kept found
or stored that it doesn't come up missing so they sit back and allow these foreign governments to take over major areas and promote
child sex trafficking who're houses with kids being sold to any man with air in his lungs!
Every corrupt person was praised and
given more power!!! Hillary sat back and knew of all the raping that bill was doing to kids teenagers young ladies boys young
men and she never blinked an eye!!! If a simple tax paying citizen was to pull the bullshit that Hillary has pulled in front of
Howdy that citizen would be see the lights day until Jesus came and took us home to Heaven!!
She gas lied straight face looked him dead in the eyes and laughed at the bengahzi deaths that She is on record having him
killed she laughed and she didn't Give a f*** about killing him and leaving his remains behind but my question is why hasn't she
been arrested booked finger printed and mugshot took with a huge bond or mot and put behind bars until you beat the f******truth
out if her??? I would get the death penalty she wouldn't and hasn't gotten a contempt of court for not complying with mr. Gowdy
Hillary Clinton actually says in this video that half of Trump supporters are "deplorable". That is equivalent to roughly 25%
of the American population! That constitutes a very strong statement from someone who wants to be president of The United States.
To say that 80 million people are "deplorable" IS TRULY DEPLORABLE!!! After hearing this I can't really understand WHY she got
even a single vote!
This is a fantastic mosaic of the state of Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. It is absolutely clear that she is an
habitual liar, corrupt to the extreme and has absolutely no credibility.
I'd love to see Mr Gowdy take the gloves off and take
her down. She must be removed from the public as she is a menace. She is the mother of deplorable.
Intelligence agencies, once created, has their own development dynamics and tend to escape from the control of
civilians and in turn control them. Such an interesting dynamics. In any case, the intelligence agencies and first of all top
brass of those agencies constitute the the core of the "deep state". Unlike civiliant emplorres they are protected by the veil of
secrecy and has access to large funds. Bush the elder was probably the first deep state creature who became the president of the
USA, but "special relationship" of Obama and Brennan is also not a secret.
Another problem is that secrecy and access to surveillance, Which gives intelligence agencies the ability to blackmail politicians.
Availability of unaccounted financial
resources make them real kingmakers. In a sense, as soon as such agencies were created the tail started waging the dog.
Notable quotes:
"... Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry Truman (1943-53) reportedly characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five decades – as the nation's top law enforcer? ..."
"... One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb. ..."
"... JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ. Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ into the White House. ..."
"... However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald – a cover-up that persists to this day. ..."
"... But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career. ..."
"... Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others ..."
No other individual in modern US history has a more sinister legacy than John Edgar Hoover,
the founder and lifetime director of the FBI. He founded the bureau in 1924 and was its
director until his death in 1972 at the age of 77.
Serving under nine presidents, from Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon, the FBI was turned
into a "Gestapo by Hoover whose modus operandi was blackmail". That's how President Harry
Truman (1943-53) reportedly
characterized Hoover's bureau. How else do you think he survived for so long – five
decades – as the nation's top law enforcer?
J Edgar Hoover and his henchmen kept files on thousands of politicians, judges, journalists
and other public figures, according to
biographer Anthony Summers. Hoover ruthlessly used those files on the secret and often sordid
private lives of senior public figures to control their career conduct and official decisions
so as to serve his interests.
And Hoover's interests were of a rightwing, anti-communist, racist bigot.
Ironically, his own suppressed homosexuality also manifested in witch-hunts against
homosexuals in public life.
It was Hoover's secret files that largely informed the McCarthyite anti-communist
inquisitions of the 1950s, whose baleful legacy on American democracy, foreign policy and
freedom of expression continues to this day.
One of Hoover's mainstay sources is strongly believed to be Mafia crime bosses who had lots
of dirt on politicians, from bribe-taking to vote-rigging, to illicit sexual affairs. It is
suspected that the Mafia had their own dossier of images on Hoover in a compromising homosexual
tryst which, in turn, kept him under their thumb.
Absurdly, the FBI chief maintained that there was "no such thing as the Mafia" in public
statements.
Two notorious cases of how FBI wiretapping worked under Hoover can be seen in the
presidencies of John F Kennedy (1961-63) and Richard Nixon (1969-74).
As recounted by Laurent Guyénot in his 2013 book , 'JFK to 9/11: 50
Years of Deep State', Hoover made a point of letting each new president know of compromising
information he had on them. It wouldn't be brandished overtly as blackmail; the president would
be briefed subtly, "Sir, if someone were to have copies of this it would be damaging to your
career". Enough said.
JFK was particularly wide open to blackmail owing to his rampant promiscuity and
extra-marital liaisons, including with screen idol Marilyn Monroe. Kennedy more than once
confided to his aides that "the bastards" had him nailed. It was for this reason that he made
the thuggish Texan Senator Lyndon B Johnson his vice president even though he detested LBJ.
Hoover and Johnson were longtime associates and the former no doubt pulled a favor to get LBJ
into the White House.
However, Hoover's blackmail on JFK was not enough to curtail his defiance of rabidly
anti-communist Cold War politics. Against the hostility of the Pentagon, CIA and FBI, Kennedy
pursued a courageous policy of detente with the Soviet Union and Cuba. Such a policy no doubt
led to his assassination by the Deep State in Dallas on November 22, 1963. There is ample
evidence that Hoover and Johnson, who became the new president, then colluded with the Deep
State assassins to cover up the assassination as the act of lone nut Lee Harvey Oswald –
a cover-up that persists to this day.
As for Richard Nixon, it is believed that "Tricky Dicky" engaged in secret communications
with the US-backed South Vietnamese regime on the cusp of the presidential elections in 1968.
Nixon promised the South Vietnamese stronger military support if they held off entering peace
talks with communist North Vietnam, which incumbent President Johnson was trying to organize.
LBJ wanted to claim a peace process was underway in order to boost the election chances of his
vice president Hubert Humphrey.
Nixon's scheming prevailed. The Vietnam peace gambit was scuttled, the Vietnam war raged on,
and so the Democrat candidate lost. Nixon finally got into the White House, which he had long
coveted from the time he lost out to JFK back in 1960.
But Hoover and Johnson got their revenge by subsequently letting Nixon know that there was
classified information on him – thanks to FBI wiretaps. The specter of incrimination is
possibly a factor in Nixon becoming increasingly paranoid during this presidency, culminating
in the ignominy of the Watergate scandal that ended his career.
These are but only two examples of how Deep State politics works in controlling and
subverting American democracy. The notion that lawmakers and presidents are free to serve the
people is a quaintly naive one. For the US media to pretend otherwise, and to hail the FBI as
some kind of benign bastion of justice, while also deprecating claims of "Deep State" intrusion
as "conspiracy theory", is either impossibly ignorant of history – or a sign of the
media's own compromised complicity.
Nonetheless, to blame this culture of institutionalized blackmail and corruption on one
individual – J Edgar Hoover – is not fair either.
Hoover certainly was the devious architect of a malign Deep State machine. But he was not
alone. He instilled a culture and legacy that pervades the top echelons of the bureau. And not
just the FBI. The early Cold War years saw the formation of the CIA and the NSA under the
Machiavellian guidance of men like Allen Dulles and Richard Helms and a host of others.
Once formed, the Deep State – as an alternate, unaccountable, unelected government
– does not surrender its immense power willingly. It has learnt to hold on to its power
through blackmail, media control, incitement of wars, and, even ultimately, assassination of
American dissenters.
The illegal tapping of private communications is an oxygen supply for the depredations of
the American Deep State.
Thinking that such agencies are not actively warping and working the electoral system to fix
the figurehead in the White House is a dangerous delusion.
So too are claims that American democracy is being "influenced" by malign Russian enemies,
as the US intelligence chiefs once again
chorused in front of the Senate this past week. The consummate irony of it!
The real "influence campaigns" corrupting American democracy are those of the "All-American"
agencies who claim to be law enforcers and defenders of national security.
US citizens would do well to refresh on the untold history of their country to appreciate
how they are being manipulated.
We might even surmise that a good number of citizens are already aware, if only vaguely, of
the elite corruption – and that is why Washington DC is viewed with increasing contempt
by the people.
"... For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork??? ..."
"... I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy ..."
"... To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't be president. ..."
"... Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field (medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that catch the errors. ..."
"... Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors. ..."
"... "Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did not come home; all died at their own hands." ..."
"... Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government in the world on their side. ..."
"... It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many times! ..."
"... The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way? Not possible. ..."
The invasion of Iraq was a mistake of historic dimensions. The "weapons of mass destruction" excuse was a lie. When I see George
W. Bush smiling on TV, I want to puke. Likewise, I cannot view an image of Lyndon Johnson without revulsion. They are both responsible
for much death and suffering. I have heard people try to excuse both of them, with the statement that "they meant well." The road
to Hell is paved with good intentions.
For Christ's sake! The "Deep State"!?! With a well documented pathological liar and a seemingly endless supply of professional
sycophants in our government selling our nation to the highest bidder in plain sight why in the world do you folks continue to
need grand delusions of demons in the woodwork???
I have no reason to believe Comey, Clapper and Brennen have served this nation with honor and integrity in dealing with
more responsibility than that required to sit safely at home and blabber about as the victim of some grand conspiracy.
The war In Afghanistan would have ended 15 years ago if the sons of members of Congress were being drafted. "It's easy to send
someone else's sons to war."
You left out the phrase "anything other than" following the phrase "have served this nation with" in your last sentence.
You forgot to express your confidence in John McCain. Good luck with that. McCain's top aide flew to a foreign city to receive
the Steele dossier, gave it to the senator, who then gave it to the FBI–as per Steele's script, I assume. It's another reason
why we need a special counsel to look into the FBI's role. A special counsel can hardly omit the McCain piece of the puzzle, whereas
a regular prosecutor can easily ignore it and cover McCain's keister.
To the extent that McCain comes out looking bad in a special counsel's report, Trump haters like you will no longer be able
to talk about Trump's supposed terrible character in dissing noble John McCain, and holding it up as Exhibit A of why Trump shouldn't
be president.
More than anything else concerning the FBI's election shenanigans, the McCain-Steele nexus–specifically the report written
about it by a special counsel–could expose the deep state's modus operandi. Not even an inspector general's report can do that
as well as a special counsel's report.
Your book will go out of print. In 10 to 20 years it will be reprinted and sell well. It takes that long for people to remove
their heads from their nether regions and be willing to contemplate the errors made.
The real irony is that we know better. There is a vast body of literature on major cognitive errors, and the whole catalog
is on display in the debacle described. Our failures of statecraft are quite analogous to the ongoing errors in my field
(medicine), well described in "To Err is Human." We've made a lot of progress in medicine in addressing them, mostly though
systems engineering. That's because the tendency toward these errors is a result of how human brains are wired, and if you
have a human brain, no matter how smart or well educated you are, you have those tendencies. The key is to create systems that
catch the errors.
Now we have to figure out how to create systems to constrain politicians, and especially the military-industrial-Congressional
complex (Eisenhower's actual original term), from making those errors.
I commiserate with your disillusioning journey because I went through a similar odyssey into self-awareness like yours many decades
ago. I served as a medical corpsman in Vietnam (31 May 1967 – 31 May 1968). It's all been downhill from there. A gradual slide
down the slippy slope of history in our decline as a nation. There's not much one can really do. But at my age, I will be long
gone when our country hits burns and crashes as it hits bottom.
"Iraq wrecked me, even though I somehow didn't expect it to. I was foolish to think that traveling to the other side of the world
and spending a year seeing death and poverty, bearing witness to a war, learning how to be mortared at night and deciding it didn't
matter that I might die before breakfast, wasn't going to change me. Of the military units I was embedded in, three soldiers did
not come home; all died at their own hands."
Enough books and movies about those poor damaged American boys yet?
The navel gazing never stops.
Here is a thought; the unprovoked American aggression in Iraq wrecked Iraq! There is no comparison between the millions
of dead, dispossessed, displaced, terrorized and radicalized Iraqis and a few thousand PTSD cases with the richest government
in the world on their side.
Get over yourselves! Honestly! It's like a pimp complaining about bruised knuckles on account of hitting a woman too many
times!
The title of your book sounds like "Invading Iraq was a Good Idea but the Implementation was Bad and I Couldn't Fix It". Did
you really think we could invade a sovereign country based on lies and win "hearts and minds" if we just did it the right way?
Not possible.
Why I am all for wire tapping and all other spying by the CIA and FBI ...get all the uber Jews
and all the politicians and make it public.
Would be delighted if all the news channels did nothing but play the tapes on the daily news.
Following is a transcript of the Oct. 22, 1992 conversation with President David Steiner
of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recorded without his knowledge by New
York businessman Haim (Harry) Katz. Its existence was first revealed to the Washington Times
and its release triggered Steiner's resignation.
(sample)
HK: Let me tell you, I was planning, I was planning to, to . . . Inouye, by the way, is in
real trouble? He's been there forever. . .
DS: Yeah! Well, we might lose him. There's been such a sea change, such trouble this year, I
can't believe all our friends that are in trouble. Because there's an anti-incumbency mood,
and foreign aid has not been popular. You know what I got for, I met with [U.S. Secretary
of State] Jim Baker and I cut a deal with him. I got, besides the $3 billion, you know
they're looking for the Jewish votes, and I'll tell him whatever he wants to hear . .
.
HK: Right.
DS: Besides the $10 billion in loan guarantees which was a fabulous thing, $3 billion in
foreign, in military aid, and I got almost a billion dollars in other goodies that people
don't even know about .
HK: Such as?
DS: $700 million in military draw-down, from equipment that the United States Army's going
to give to Israel; $200 million the U.S. government is going to preposition materials in
Israel, which Israel can draw upon; put them in the global warning protection system; so when
if there's a missile fired, they'll get the same advanced notification that the U.S., is
notified, joint military exercises -- I've got a whole shopping list of things .
-- The gang is also very stupid. From Halper-the-spy and his incompetent handler Brennan
to the obnoxious zionists of Ledeen kind they, the members of the "gang", show incompetence
and the self-endangering and stupid amorality.
By destroying whatever decent has been in the western civilization so far, and by
spreading the rot around, the gangsters have been destroying their children's &
grandchildren's future.
"... Those who started Russia probe were attempting a 'coup', AG must start investigation – Trump ..."
"... The coup happened in earnest on 9/11 and the people who started the Russia probe were just doing what they do: sow division
and strife within the domestic population to allow them to continue operating in an unfettered manner in service to their master, Zionism.
..."
"... "When the Mueller report is released, it would be wonderful if he explained why neither he, the senate, nor any one of the
federal law or intelligence agencies who have all given opinions on the matter, has ever taken the simple first step of examining the
DNC servers. He won't." ..."
"... Friends and associates of all of these 'ringleaders' (in single-quotes because my suppositions are based on indirect evidence)
have gotten key positions in the Trump Administration. ..."
The coup happened in earnest on 9/11 and the people who started the Russia probe were just doing what they do: sow division
and strife within the domestic population to allow them to continue operating in an unfettered manner in service to their master,
Zionism.
"When the Mueller report is released, it would be wonderful if he explained why neither he, the senate, nor any one of
the federal law or intelligence agencies who have all given opinions on the matter, has ever taken the simple first step of examining
the DNC servers.
He won't."
Nor will there be any answer to the unasked questions that after Murray's open statement about he knowing the leaker and the
revelation of the metadata why none of the people involved were questioned.
"Dems face an awkward choice: continue to defend those who gave them a discredited (& self-defeating) conspiracy theory, or
acknowledge that those people, including intel officials, acted improperly."
I'm sure we'll be discussing what Ray McGovern has dubbed Deep State Gate now that Russiagate's ended. I linked to Ray's essay
earlier, which focused on BigLie media's roll.
IMO the notion that a few senior Intelligence officials (mostly FBI) tried to overthrow Trump is silly to the point of being
laughable. But that is the fall-back position that is being ... ur, Trumped up. The fact is, Trump has done everything that the
Deep State and establishment could have wanted: expanded the military budget, cut taxes, reduced regulations, etc.
While some will complain loudly (for now), the whole affair will slowly fade away because, as I've previously noted, the
best explanation for Russiagate is that the Deep State selected Trump and ran an anti-Russia psyop to spur neo-McCarthyism. As
part of that effort, it seems highly likely that they attempted to settle scores with Wikileaks/Assange and Michael Flynn.
FBI failures - to follow investigative procedures; to include important information to the FISA court, etc. - are best explained
as part of the bi-partisan Deep State consensus to pursue an anti-Russia agenda.
Anyone that thinks that senior people would participate in such activities without the cover of higher-ups is smoking something.
Brennan, Mueller, Hillary, McCain, and Kissinger have the collective power to form and initiate a strategy to meet the challenge
from Russia and China.
It all goes back to the 2014 surprise realization that Russia had grown a backbone and that the Russia-China Alliance was a
serious threat to AZ Empire's NWO. That point of view was described by Kissinger in August 2014, in which Kissinger ALSO called
for MAGA.
Trump entered the race for President 10 months later as the only MAGA candidate.
Friends and associates of all of these 'ringleaders' (in single-quotes because my suppositions are based on indirect
evidence) have gotten key positions in the Trump Administration.
Trump himself is close to the Clintons.
VP Pence was close to McCain.
Gina Haspel is Brennan's gal at CIA.
AG Wm Barr is close to Robert Mueller.
Neocon Bolton - close to Kissinger or Kissinger acolytes.
Congressman Doug Collins (Repub. Georgia) has released two more transcripts of committee
interviews of people about the attempt to de-legitimize the election and inauguration of an
elected president, and to create conditions for his removal. They can be viewed and downloaded
for reading.
... ... ...
Representative Collins previously released transcripts of interviews of Peter
Strzok, Lisa Page, George Papadopolous, and Bruce and Nellie Ohr. Those transcripts were cited
here at SST on 29 March 2019--
Money quote: "The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from
the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White
House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. There are clear parallels between the end stages
of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from
reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against
the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not
lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate."
Notable quotes:
"... Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016 – a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’ ..."
"... Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come. It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk .) ..."
"... Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic, with Dearlove certainly among them. ..."
"... ‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes #Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’ ..."
"... The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same. ..."
"... A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation. ..."
"... In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’) ..."
"... The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief. ..."
"... There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from ‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller." ..."
"... I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary, increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language. ..."
"... The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go. This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House. It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler. ..."
"... There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire crashes we may not be so fortunate. ..."
"Dan, Thanks for the reference, which I will follow up. Unfortunately, although Bongino has produced a lot of extremely valuable
material, a lot of it is buried in the 'postcasts', searching through which is harder than with printed materials. It would greatly
help if there were transcripts, but of course those cost money.
I am still trying to fit the exploding mass of information which has been coming out into a coherent timeline. Part of the
problem is that there is so much appearing in so many different places. In addition to trying to think through the implications
of the information in this post and the subsequent exchanges of comments, I have been trying to make sense of evidence coming
out about the British end of the conspiracy.
An important development here has been rather well covered by Chuck Ross, in a recent ‘Daily Caller’ piece headlined ‘Cambridge
Academic Reflects On Interactions With 'Spygate’ Figure’ and one on ‘Fox’ by Catherine Herridge and Cyd Upson, entitled ‘Russian
academic linked to Flynn denies being spy, says her past contact was “used” to smear him.’ However, the evidence involved has ramifications
which they cannot be expected to understand, as yet at least.
At issue is the attempt to use the – apparently casual – encounter between Lieutenant-General Flynn and Svetlana Lokhova at a
dinner in Cambridge (U.K.) in February 2016 to smear him by, among other things, portraying her as some kind of ‘Mata Hari’ figure.
Among interesting dates, it appears that Stefan Halper was already trying to reach out to Lokhova in January-February 2016
– a lot earlier than his approaches to Papadopoulo s and Page. This was done through Professor Christopher Andrew, co-convenor with
Halper and the former MI6 had Sir Richard Dearlove of the ‘Cambridge Intelligence Seminar.’
This suggests that this was not simply a case Halper acting on his own. It also I think brings us back to the central importance
of Flynn’s visit to Moscow in December 2015.
Meanwhile, Lokhova has set up a blog on which she has posted a some interesting relevant material, with perhaps more to come.
It is very well worth a look.(See https://www.russiagate.co.uk
.)
Of particular interest, to my mind, is the full text of her – unpublished – May 2017 interview with the ‘New York Times.’ This
points us back to is the fact – of which Lokhova shows no signs of awareness – that the idea that the Western powers and the Russians
might have a common interest in fighting jihadist terrorism has been absolute anathema to many key figures on both sides of the Atlantic,
with Dearlove certainly among them.
Some of Lokhova’s comments on ‘twitter’ are extremely entertaining. An example, with which I have much sympathy:
‘AN APOLOGY: Yesterday, I compared @nytimes journalists, who smeared @GenFlynn and accused me of being a Russian spy, to
cockroaches. In good conscience, I must apologize to the cockroaches for the distress caused to them for being compared to @nytimes
#Russiagate hoaxers. Sorry!’
Meanwhile, another interesting recent ‘tweet’ comes from Eliot Higgins, of ‘Bellingcat’ fame. He is known to some skeptics as
‘the couch potato’ – perhaps he should be rechristened ‘king cockroach.’ It reads:
‘Looking forward to gettin g things rolling with the Open Information Partnership, with @bellingcat, @MDI_UK, @DFRLab, and @This_Is_Zinc
https://www.openinformation...’
There is an interesting ‘backstory’ to this. The announcement of an FCO-supported ‘Open Information Partnership of European Non-Governmental
Organisations, charities, academics, think-tanks and journalists’, supposedly to counter ‘disinformation’ from Russia, came in a
written answer from the Minister of State, Sir Alan Duncan, on 3 April.
In turn this followed the latest in a series of releases of material either leaked or hacked from the organisations calling themselves
‘Institute for Statecraft’ and ‘Integrity Initiative’ by the group calling themselves ‘Anonymous’ on 25 March.
The centerpiece of this is a proposal submitted to the FCO in August last year by what seems to be essentially the same consortium
whose existence as a government contractor has now been made public. The ‘Institute for Statecraft’ has vanished, and one consortium
member, ‘Aktis Strategy’, has gone into liquidation. But other key members are the same.
A central underlying premise is that if anyone has any doubts as to whether the ‘White Helmets’ are a benevolent humanitarian
organisation, or the Russians were responsible for the poisoning of the Skripals or the shooting down of MH17, the only possible
explanation is that their minds have been poisoned by disinformation.
An interesting paragraph reads as follows:
‘An expanded research component could generate better understanding of the drivers (psychological, sociopolitical, cultural
and environmental) of those who are susceptible to disinformation. This will allow us to map vulnerable audiences, and build scenario
planning models to test the efficiency of different activities to build resilience of those populations over time.’
They have not yet got to the point of recommending psychiatic treatment for ‘dissidents’, but these are still early days. The
‘Sovietisation’ of Western life proceeds apace.
In fact, what is at issue an ambitious project to co-ordinate and strengthen a very large number of organisations in different
countries which are committed to a relentlessly Russophobic line on everything. (The possibility that it might not be very bright
to push Russia into the arms of China, the obviously rising power, does not seem to have occurred to these people – perhaps they
need less ons from Sir Halford Mackinder, or indeed Niccolò Machiavelli, on ‘statecraft.’)
Study of the proposal hacked/leaked by ‘Anonymous’ bring out both the ‘boondoggle’ element – there is a lot of state funding available
for people happy to play these games – and also the strong transatlantic links.
A particularly significant presence, here, is the ‘DFRLab’. This is the ‘Digital Forensic Research Lab’ at the ‘Atlantic Council’,
where Eliot Higgins is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’ The same organisation has a ‘Cyber Statecraft Initiative’ where Dmitri Alperovitch
is a ‘nonresident senior fellow.’
It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access to
the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the ‘digital forensics’
done by their own people.
There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been
a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that
organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic ‘Atlantic Council’ is even more preposterous.
The clear close integration of other cyber people from the ‘Atlantic Council’ into Orwellian ‘information operations’ sponsored
by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.
There has to be a strong possible ‘prima facie’ case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the ‘digital forensics’ from
‘CrowdStrike’ is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy. This certainly
goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."
OT but related, just watched a former naval Intelligence officer, now working for the Hoover Institute interviewed on FOX about
the Rooshins in Venezuela. Said, the 100 Russians are there to protect Maduro because he cannot trust his own army. Maduro's days
are numbered because he is toxically unpopular.
Got me thinking, our Intelligence services are good at psy-ops and keeping our gullible MSM in line but God help us if we ever
actually needed real Intelligence about a country. I remember about a month ago how all of these 'Think Tank Guys' were predicting
how the only people loyal to Maduro were a few of his crony Generals, that the rank and file military hated him and there were
going to be mass defections.
It didn't happen and we are all just supposed to forget that.
[not a socialist, don't have any love for Maduro, I just know that I will never learn anything of about Venezuela from these think
tank dudes, we are just getting groomed]
Venezuela isn't about "socialism," or even Maduro--it's about the oil. They have the largest proven reserves in the world, though
much of it is non-conventional and would need a ton of investment to exploit. But it's their oil, not ours, and we have no right
to meddle in their internal affairs.
Venezuela is neither about socialism nor oil in my opinion. It is everything to do with the neocons. And Trump buying into their
hegemonic dreams. Notice the resurrection of Elliott Abrams of Iran-Contra fame as the man spearheading this in a triumvirate
with Bolton & Pompeo. IMO, a perfect foil for Putin & Xi to embroil the US in another regime change quagmire that further weakens
the US.
"There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has
been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating
for that organisation.
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous."
True; and true. It is also true that the Clinton e-mail investigation was faux, a limp caricature of what an investigation
would look like when it is designed to uncover the truth. Allowing a subject's law firm to review the subject's e-mails from when
she was in government for relevancy is beyond preposterous. An investigation conducted in the normal way by apolitical Agents
in a field office would not walk away from a trove of evidence empty handed.
The inter-relatedness and overlapping of DoJ, CIA, and FBI personnel assigned to the Clinton e-mail case, the Russophobic nightmare
of a 'case' targeting Carter Page, and by extension, the Trump presidential campaign, and yes, the Mueller political op, all reek
of political bias and ineptitude followed by more political bias; and then culmination in a scorched earth investigation more
characteristic of something the STASI might have undertaken than American justice.
Early morning raids, gag orders, solitary confinements, show indictments that will never see adjudication in a court room - truly
unbelievable.
In your opinion was this surveillance, criminal & counter-intelligence investigation as well as information operations against
Trump centrally orchestrated or was it more reactive & decentralized?
There are so many facets. Fusion GPS & Nellie Ohr with her previous CIA connection. Her husband Bruce at the DOJ stovepiping
the dossier to the FBI. Brennan and his EC. Clapper and his intelligence assessment. Halper, Mifsud, Steele along with Hannigan
and the MI6 + GCHQ connection. Downer and the Aussies. FISA warrants on Page & Papadopolous. The whole Strzok & Page texting.
Comey, Lynch & the Hillary exoneration. McCabe. Then all the Russians. And the media leaks to generate hysteria.
I'd recommend for reading Alexei Yurchak's "Everything Was Forever, Until It was No More: The Last Soviet Generation." Its
about a class of apparatchiks and bureaucrats and hangers on who spoke this arcane, abstract dogmatic language that anyone normal
had long since given up trying to understand. It had long ceased to have any relevance or attachment to the lives lived by ordinary,
increasingly suffering people, who started talking to each other in practical and direct language.
And yet the chatterati
continued to chatter and invent ludicrously unreal worlds and analyses of the actual world they lived in until... bang... it was
no more.
I'd skip the first few chapters which are full of impenetrable marxist jargon.
The Russian collusion investigation was based solely on the dodgy Steele Dossier that was discredited here from the get-go.
This was a product of British Intelligence Community. The intent was to keep and then to get Donald Trump out of the White House.
It failed but they did succeed in turning him into a neo-lib-con fellow traveler.
There are clear parallels between the end stages of the Soviet Union and the American Empire. My take since the Iraq Invasion
is that they are insane. The ruling elite is detached from reality, incompetent and arrogant. Sooner or later someone with their
facilities still intact will lead a middle-class revolt against the global plutocracy to restore democracy and reverse the rising
inequality. We were lucky that the fall of the Soviet Union did not lead to a nuclear war. The next time a nuclear armed Empire
crashes we may not be so fortunate.
Selection of Crowdstrike is highly suspect; the behaviour of FBI is highly suspect (why they allowed the contractor to handle
the evidence), the behaviour of MSM is highly suspect (they came with the predefined notion -- Russia), the murder of Seth Rich and
subsequent investigation (or the lack of thereof ) are highly suspect. Add to this mix incredible Awan brothers story
and Debbie Wasserman behaviour after Imran Awan arrest
This all points in the direction of the false flag.
Notable quotes:
"... There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be devastating for that organisation . ..."
"... The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad op to portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole affair). And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which CIA seems to have joined with MI6. ..."
"... If the publication of the DNC emails was in fact a false flag then to support Assange that fact needs to be proven, and the persons responsible exposed for staging a false "framing of Assange" event.. ..."
"... The Zionist "take the oil from the Ottoman" project involved weaponizing Jewish immigration and and redirecting European Jewish immigration from locating in Argentina ..."
It cannot be repeated often enough that it is difficult to see any conceivable excuse for the FBI to fail to secure access
to the DNC servers. One would normally moreover expect that, on an issue of this sensitivity, they would have the 'digital
forensics' done by their own people.
There can be no conceivable excuse for relying on a contractor selected by the organisation which is claiming that there
has been a hack, when an alternative possibility is a leak: and the implications of the alternative possibility could be
devastating for that organisation .
To rely on a contractor linked to the notoriously Russophobic 'Atlantic Council' is even more preposterous.
The clear close integration of other cyber people from the 'Atlantic Council' into Orwellian 'information operations'
sponsored by the British Government simply puts these facts into sharp relief.
There has to be a strong possible 'prima facie' case that anyone in authority prepared to accept the 'digital forensics'
from 'CrowdStrike' is complicit in the conspiracy against the constitution, and/or the conspiracy to cover-up that conspiracy.
This certainly goes for Comey, and I think it also goes for Mueller."
IMO The suggestion that Crowdstrike called it a hack instead of a leak to absolve themselves [as per the bolded phrase] is specious.
But Habbuk (thankfully) rightly puts the onus on the FBI for not doing their job.
The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad
op to portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole
affair). And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which
CIA seems to have joined with MI6.
The chain of events that led to the publication of the DNC emails is highly suspect. IMO it's likely to be a CIA/Mossad op to
portray Wikileaks as an agent of Russia (AFAIK, Seth Rich was Jewish; and his family has acted strangely about the whole affair).
And this 'op' fits well with use of the 2016 Presidential campaign to prepare for McCarthyist 'Russiagate' - for which CIA seems
to have joined with MI6.
by: Jackrabbit @7
Seems to me this could be that place to start donkeytale @ 3 asks is there a way to save Julian Assange..
If the publication of
the DNC emails was in fact a false flag then to support Assange that fact needs to be proven, and the persons responsible exposed
for staging a false "framing of Assange" event..
The Jews immigrated to NYC from Salonika (the other half went to Russia) after the failure to use a corrupted CUP to over throw
the Ottomans ( Ottomans discovered, and burned the Jews out) in 1908-1912 the dominate political majority in NYC became Jewish, dwarfing
the previous majority, who were the Irish.
So when the POTUS needed stronger support to force governed Americans into WWI, Those in charge of the banker backed "take
the oil and land from the Ottomans" project in banker controlled Europe directed the new NYC immigrants to send letters to the
POTUS urging USA entry into the war in Europe.. within a week over a million letters arrived, which were designed to strengthen POTUS
efforts to force Americans and the congress critters into WWI (abuse of American human rights by sending soldiers, creating a tax
law, that had been rule unconstitutional every year since 1865 to (1912-13) diverting the domestic budget to a foreign war budget,
and organizing and directing the industrial might of America to assist in the WWI Zionist movement in Europe to take the oil from
the Ottoman.
WWI was planned before 1896, (Read: Roland Green Usher Pan-Germanism 1913-14 and My Memoirs 1878-1918 by Ex-Kaiser William, II<
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_II,_German_Emperor)
and organized at Zionist Congress (1897) in Europe (Russia signed a contain Germany Agreement with France in 1896 to deny Germany)
and in 1897 the USA secretly agreed to support France and England against Germany agreement (why? Germany relations with Ottomans
gave Germans access to the Ottoman oil, which the British, French and USA bankers and the corporations they sponsored would not stand
for.
The Zionist "take the oil from the Ottoman" project involved weaponizing Jewish immigration and and redirecting European
Jewish immigration from locating in Argentina [ http://www.billgladstone.ca/?p=3197]
to locating in Ottoman-Palestine-Israel locations <=object to: occupy and eventually displace the Ottomans (WWI divided the Ottoman
empire into British Palestine, and French Syria) from their land and their oil.
So letters (in answer to donkeytale @ 3) with return receipt, sent directly to the POTUS might be a means to support Julian Assange?
I can imagine what it might be like to see 10 million return receipts posted somewhere!
"... Nice group shot of the three stooges. The most dishonest, disloyal, dipshitted psychopaths a country should never have to endure. ..."
"... The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies are buried. ..."
"... There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan, Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc. ..."
"... This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time. ..."
As the Russia collusion hoax hurtles toward its demise, it's important to consider how this destructive information operation
rampaged through vital American institutions for more than two years , and what can be done to stop such a damaging episode from
recurring.
While the hoax was fueled by a wide array of false accusations, misleading leaks of ostensibly classified information, and bad-faith
investigative actions by government officials, one vital element was indispensable to the overall operation: the Steele dossier.
<
Funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democrat National Committee, which hid their payments from disclosure by funneling
them through the law firm Perkins Coie, the dossier was a collection of false and often absurd accusations of collusion between Trump
associates and Russian officials. These allegations, which relied heavily on Russian sources cultivated by Christopher Steele, were
spoon-fed to Trump opponents in the U.S. government, including officials in law enforcement and intelligence.
The efforts to feed the dossier's allegations into top levels of the U.S. government, particularly intelligence agencies, were
championed by Steele, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, and various intermediaries. These allegations were given directly to the
FBI and Justice Department, while similar allegations were fed into the State Department by long-time Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal.
Their efforts were remarkably effective. Officials within the FBI and DOJ, whether knowingly or unintentionally, provided essential
support to the hoax conspirators, bypassing normal procedures and steering the information away from those who would view it critically.
The dossier soon metastasized within the government, was cloaked in secrecy, and evaded serious scrutiny.
High-ranking officials such as then-FBI general counsel James Baker and then-Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr were
among those whose actions advanced the hoax. Ohr, one of the most senior officials within the DOJ, took the unprecedented step of
providing to Steele a back door into the FBI investigation. This enabled the former British spy to continue to feed information to
investigators, even though he had been terminated by the FBI for leaking to the press and was no longer a valid source. Even worse,
Ohr directly briefed Andrew Weissmann and Zainab Ahmad, two DOJ officials who were later assigned to special counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation. In short, the investigation was marked by glaring irregularities that would normally be deemed intolerable.
According to Ohr's congressional testimony, he told top-level FBI officials as early as August or September 2016 that Steele was
biased against Trump, that Steele's work was connected to the Clinton campaign, and that Steele's material was of questionable reliability.
Steele himself confirmed that last point in a British court case in which he acknowledged his allegations included unverified information.
Yet even after this revelation, intelligence leaders continued to cite the Steele dossier in applications to renew the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act warrant on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
It is astonishing that intelligence leaders did not immediately recognize they were being manipulated in an information operation
or understand the danger that the dossier could contain deliberate disinformation from Steele's Russian sources . In fact, it is
impossible to believe in light of everything we now know about the FBI's conduct of this investigation, including the astounding
level of anti-Trump animus shown by high-level FBI figures like Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, as well as the inspector general's discovery
of a shocking number of leaks by FBI officials.
It's now clear that top intelligence officials were perfectly well aware of the dubiousness of the dossier, but they embraced
it anyway because it justified actions they wanted to take - turning the full force of our intelligence agencies first against a
political candidate and then against a sitting president.
The hoax itself was a gift to our nation's adversaries, most notably Russia. The abuse of intelligence for political purposes
is insidious in any democracy. It undermines trust in democratic institutions, and it damages the reputation of the brave men and
women who are working to keep us safe. This unethical conduct has had major repercussions on America's body politic, creating a yearslong
political crisis whose full effects remain to be seen.
Having extensively investigated this abuse, House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals
on numerous individuals involved in these matters.
These people must be held to account to prevent similar abuses from occurring in the future. The men and women of our intelligence
community perform an essential service defending American national security, and their ability to carry out their mission cannot
be compromised by biased actors who seek to transform the intelligence agencies into weapons of political warfare.
All 3 of them have been confirmed to by lying through their teeth by their own people. They are all going down. We just need
the Mueller report to come out to get the ball rolling. Can't do it before the report comes out as they would call it obstruction.
So we wait another 9 days, or less, according to AG Barr.
Could be, PapaGeorge. Maybe this time it's different because it could be argued that the TPTB don't want Trump pulling the
same thing on the DNC--and get away with it like the Usual Suspects just did. In legal terms, a bar has been set. BARR? Get it?
Buwhahahahahahahahahha!!!
The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead bodies
are buried. There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof.
You can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan,
Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.
This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase
it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great
big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time
The likelihood of anyone being convicted let alone indicted is rather slim. Why? These people know where too many dead
bodies are buried.
There is an understanding in their circles that certain individuals on both sides of the spectrum are bulletproof. You
can't run such a large criminal enterprise without it being this way. Why else would Mueller not talk to Comey, Clapper, Brennan,
Steele, the heads of Fusion GPS, the Russian lawyer who met with Trump Jr., the promoter who set that up, etc., etc.
This whole ordeal was meant to die an uneventful death. It's unlikely Barr will act on any recommendations from Nunes becuase
it would start a partisan war that would snare GOP never Trumpers too. It's how Washington works. Like Carlin says - it's a great
big club and you ain't in it. They are, and they don't do time.
<<<House Intelligence Committee Republicans will soon be submitting criminal referrals on numerous individuals involved in
these matters<<< We shall see now, won't we? I won't believe this, till I see It!
Comey was a part of the coup -- a color revolution against Trump with Bremmen (possibly assigned by Obama) pulling the strings. That's right. This is a banana republic with nukes.
Notable quotes:
"... "Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials who have seen it. ..."
"... Comment: The FBI now flip-flops from its previous assessment: FBI rejects CIA assessment that Russia influenced presidential election ..."
FBI and National
Intelligence chiefs both agree with the CIA assessment that Russia interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections partly in an
effort to help Donald Trump win the White House, US media report.
FBI Director James B. Comey and Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper are both convinced that Russia was behind cyberattacks
that targeted Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign chairman, John Podesta,
The Washington Post and reported Friday, citing a message sent by CIA Director John Brennan to his employees.
"Earlier this week, I met separately with FBI [Director] James Comey and DNI Jim Clapper, and there is strong consensus among
us on the scope, nature, and intent of Russian interference in our presidential election," the message said, according to officials
who have seen it.
"The three of us also agree that our organizations, along with others, need to focus on completing the thorough review of this
issue that has been directed by President Obama and which is being led by the DNI," it continued.
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked. ..."
"... Bill has frequent flier points on Lolita Express. He had a 14yr.old toy on the island and the flight logs can prove his attendance. ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." ..."
"... THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to jail? ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
"... Hastert mentioned in WikiLeaks: https://wearechange.org/disgraced-house-speaker-pedophile-dennis-hastert/ As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for office because they are easier to blackmail and control. ..."
Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only
now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.
While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine.
"He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
side."
Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed
he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the
comment curious.
"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came
nearly six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida
charges of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney
asked.
Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd
be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no,
that was probably Bill.
"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..."
THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians
victims, for over 70 years... "
Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble
... GOP and Democrat. And Trump? Acosta is in his admin, right? Or, he didn't fire the scum yet? And when is Hillary going to
jail?
I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The $wamp
can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed,
etc.'
I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition
country - ASAP.
"... It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too. ..."
"... Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. ..."
"... What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate. ..."
"... Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness ..."
"... The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted. ..."
"... Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges. ..."
"... Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be. ..."
Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special
counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to
uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.
Painting the pig's face
The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings
of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to
emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is
happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.
Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged,
self-harming neoliberal capitalism.
The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us
and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.
It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention
from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the
left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Mired in corruption
What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was
inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption
among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting
the Democratic leadership too.
An anti-corruption investigation would have run much deeper and exposed far more. It would have highlighted
the Clinton Foundation, and the role of mega-donors like James Simons, George Soros and Haim Saban who funded Hillary's campaign
with one aim in mind: to get their issues into a paid-for national "consensus".
Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the
Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed
in the content of the DNC emails. It was the leaking / hacking of those emails that provided the rationale for Mueller's investigations.
What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent
party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate.
So, in short, Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent
both targeting Trump for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership
for its own, equally corrupt practices.
Trump empowered
But it's far worse than that. It is not just that the left wasted two years of political energy on
Russiagate. At the same time, they empowered Trump, breathing life into his phony arguments that he is the anti-establishment president,
a people's president the elites are determined to destroy.
Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he
refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness.
And he is doing so not because he wants to reform or overthrow turbo-charged capitalism but because he wants to remove the last,
largely cosmetic constraints on the system so that he and his friends can plunder with greater abandon – and destroy the planet more
quickly.
The other wing of the neoliberal establishment, the one represented by the Democratic party leadership, fears
that exposing capitalism in this way – making explicit its inherently brutal, wrist-slitting tendencies – will awaken the masses,
that over time it will risk turning them into revolutionaries. Democratic party leaders fear Trump chiefly because of the threat
he poses to the image of the political and economic system they have so lovingly crafted so that they can continue enriching themselves
and their children.
Trump's genius – his only genius – is to have appropriated, and misappropriated, some of the language of the
left to advance the interests of the 1 per cent. When he attacks the corporate "liberal" media for having a harmful agenda, for serving
as propagandists, he is not wrong. When he rails against the identity politics cultivated by "liberal" elites over the past two decades
– suggesting that it has weakened the US – he is not wrong. But he is right for the wrong reasons.
TV's version of clickbait
The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them
wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait,
just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate.
The handful of corporations that own the US media – and much of corporate America besides – are there both
to make ever-more money by expanding profits and to maintain the credibility of a political and economic system that lets them make
ever more money.
The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other
words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump,
prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They
care much less whether the pig's face remains painted.
So Trump is right that the "liberal" media is undemocratic and that it is now propagandising against him. But
he is wrong about why. In fact, all corporate media – whether "liberal" or not, whether against Trump or for him – is undemocratic.
All of the media propagandises for a rotten system that keeps the vast majority of Americans impoverished. All of the media cares
more for Trump and the elites he belongs to than it cares for the 99 per cent.
Gorging on the main course
Similarly, with identity politics. Trump says he wants to make (a white) America great again, and uses the
left's obsession with identity as a way to energize a backlash from his own supporters.
Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head
of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the
political cul-de-sac of identity politics.
Just as Mueller put the left on standby, into waiting-for-the-Messiah mode, so simple-minded, pussy-hat-wearing
identity politics has been cultivated in the supposedly liberal bastions of the corporate media and Ivy League universities – the
same universities that have turned out generations of Muellers and Clintons – to deplete the left's political energies. While we
argue over who is most entitled and most victimised, the establishment has carried on raping and pillaging Third World countries,
destroying the planet and siphoning off the wealth produced by the rest of us.
These liberal elites long ago worked out that if we could be made to squabble among ourselves about who was
most entitled to scraps from the table, they could keep gorging on the main course.
The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised
with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders
the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that
class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges.
The Corbyn experience
3. But the most important lesson of all for the left is that support among its ranks for the Mueller inquiry
against Trump was foolhardy in the extreme.
Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent
for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains.
And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.
If there is any doubt about that look to the UK. Britain now has within reach of power the first truly progressive
politician in living memory, someone seeking to represent the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. But Jeremy Corbyn's experience as
the leader of the Labour party – massively swelling the membership's ranks to make it the largest political party in Europe – has
been eye-popping.
I have documented Corbyn's travails regularly in this blog over the past four years at the hands of the British
political and media establishment. You can find many examples
here.
Corbyn, even more so than the small, new wave of insurgency politicians in the US Congress, has faced a relentless
barrage of criticism from across the UK's similarly narrow political spectrum. He has been attacked by both the rightwing media and
the supposedly "liberal" media. He has been savaged by the ruling Conservative party, as was to be expected, and by his own parliamentary
Labour party. The UK's two-party system has been exposed as just as hollow as the US one.
The ferocity of the attacks has been necessary because, unlike the Democratic party's success in keeping a
progressive leftwinger away from the presidential campaign, the UK system accidentally allowed a socialist to slip past the gatekeepers.
All hell has broken out ever since.
Simple-minded identity politics
What is so noticeable is that Corbyn is rarely attacked over his policies – mainly because they have
wide popular appeal. Instead he has been hounded over fanciful claims that, despite being a life-long and very visible anti-racism
campaigner, he suddenly morphed into an outright anti-semite the moment party members elected him leader.
I will not rehearse again how implausible these claims are. Simply look through these previous
blog posts
should you be in any doubt.
But what is amazing is that, just as with the Mueller inquiry, much of the British left – including prominent
figures like Owen Jones and the supposedly countercultural Novara Media – have sapped their political energies in trying to placate
or support those leading the preposterous claims that Labour under Corbyn has become "institutionally anti-semitic". Again, the promotion
of a simple-minded identity politics – which pits the rights of Palestinians against the sensitivities of Zionist Jews about Israel
– was exploited to divide the left.
The more the left has conceded to this campaign, the angrier, the more implacable, the more self-righteous
Corbyn's opponents have become – to the point that the Labour party is now in serious danger of imploding.
A clarifying moment
Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and
one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be.
That is not because a leftwing US president would be more corrupt or more likely to have colluded with a foreign
power. As the UK example shows, it would be because the entire media system – from the New York Times to Fox News – would be against
such a president. And as the UK example also shows, it would be because the leaderships of both the Republican and Democratic parties
would work as one to finish off such a president.
In the combined success-failure of the Mueller inquiry, the left has an opportunity to understand in a much
more sophisticated way how real power works and in whose favour it is exercised. It is moment that should be clarifying – if we are
willing to open our eyes to Mueller's real lessons.
This article is over a year old, but it really explains what this with hunt was about -- to deflect real interference in the US
election as well as exonerate Hillary fiasco. The way Russian were selected is a typical "projected" Anti-Semitism -- persecution on
the base on national origin without any solid fact, but with plenty of prejudices due to Russia Soviet past. What a gang of scamsters
the US neoliberal elite became !
Russiagate Revisited
35 The
anti-Russian hysteria in Washington has slipped beyond self-parody. We now have front-row seats in a theatre of the absurd, watching
the media furor explode after Robert Mueller's 'indictments' of 13 Russians and three Russian companies for interfering in the 2016
presidential elections.
Mueller's actions deserve the scare quotes because they are not really indictments at all. The accused parties will never be extradited
or brought to trial. Nor is it clear that their actions rise to the level of crimes. The supposed indictments are merely dramatic
accusations, a giant publicity stunt.
Even if they were real indictments, they would not be convictions. American journalists seem to have forgotten that distinction.
In contemporary American jurisprudence, prosecutors routinely get rubber stamps from grand juries. A grand jury, the adage goes,
will indict a ham sandwich. For a g-man on a white horse like Mueller, universally lionised in the mainstream media, a grand jury
would probably indict a peanut butter sandwich.
One of the most bizarre aspects of Russiagate is the magical transformation of intelligence agency heads into paragons of truth-telling
– a trick performed not by reactionary apologists for domestic spying, as one would expect, but by people who consider themselves
liberals. There is something genuinely absurd about a former director of the FBI – which along with the CIA and NSA has long been
one of the gravest threats to democracy in America – solemnly warning of the threat to democracy posed by Russian meddling in the
election.
And what was the nature of that alleged meddling? The pseudo-indictments are clear: the meddlers had nothing to do with the Russian
government and nothing to do with the Trump campaign – except that they sometimes 'communicated with unwitting individuals' associated
with it. And the Russians' activities had no impact on the outcome of the election. Mueller's assignment was to investigate whether
the Russian government colluded with the Trump campaign to promote his victory over Hillary Clinton. None of the current charges
has anything to do with this. (Nor does Mueller's recent indictment of Alex van der Zwaan, an attorney and associate of Trump's crony
Paul Manafort.) The pseudo-indictments merely add to the billowing clouds of innuendo that have characterised the Russiagate narrative
from the beginning.
According to Mueller's accusations, the meddlers began their operations long before the campaign began and certainly before anyone
thought Trump had a snowball's chance in hell; they posed as Muslims, black activists, white Southerners, among other social types,
all posting slogans and invective on social media. After the election, they staged pro-Trump and anti-Trump rallies. Somehow the
media have made this mishmash fit the Russiagate narrative, assuming it reveals a coherent Kremlin plan to elect Trump.
So what is the point of these sham indictments? It is fair to speculate that there is more going on here than a simple search
for truth. Early on in the 37-page document that was
released to such fanfare, the FBI makes a revealing assertion, claiming that the Russians aimed 'to sow discord in the US political
system' – as if vigorous debate were not an appropriate state of affairs for a democratic polity; as if the normal expression
of democracy is bland conformity to policies fashioned by elites. By explicitly linking the Russians with support for the Sanders
and Trump campaigns, Mueller's pseudo-indictments identify dissent from the Washington consensus with foreign subversion. They reinforce
the reigning orthodoxy and tighten the boundaries of permissible public discourse.
The consequences are potentially catastrophic. By focusing on the manufactured menace of Russiagate, the Democratic Party leadership
can continue to ignore its own failures as well as the actual menace posed by Trump. And by fostering the fantasy of a vast Russian
plot against America, the mainstream media can shut down reasonable foreign policy debate and promote a dangerous, unnecessary confrontation
with a rival power. The final act in Washington's theatre of the absurd has yet to be written, but the denouement looks dark.
This is probably the most comprehensive outline of the color revolution against Trump. Bravo, simply bravo !!!
Reads like Agatha Christi Murder on the Orient
Express ;-) Rosenstein role is completely revised from a popular narrative. Brennan role clarifies and detailed. Obama
personal role hinted. Victoria Nuland role and the role of the State Department in Russiagate is documented for the first
time, I think.
Notable quotes:
"... The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation, led by McCabe, could continue unhindered. ..."
"... Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known since at least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr, an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working for Fusion GPS sometime in late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier. ..."
"... The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is provided by Section 2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's data-sharing order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission. ..."
"... Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken. ..."
"... The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and charged with one count of lying to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time. ..."
"... The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the former British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute, to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017, statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey. ..."
"... Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations -- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia. ..."
"... Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents? ..."
Spygate: The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] How America's most powerful agencies were weaponized against President
Donald Trump
Although the details remain complex, the structure underlying Spygate -- the creation of the false narrative that candidate Donald
Trump colluded with Russia, and the spying on his presidential campaign -- remains surprisingly simple:
CIA Director John Brennan, with some assistance from Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, gathered foreign intelligence
and fed it throughout our domestic Intelligence Community.
The FBI became the handler of Brennan's intelligence and engaged in the more practical elements of surveillance.
The Department of Justice facilitated investigations by the FBI and legal maneuverings, while providing a crucial shield of
nondisclosure.
The Department of State became a mechanism of information dissemination and leaks.
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee provided funding, support, and media collusion.
Obama administration officials were complicit, and engaged in unmasking and intelligence gathering and dissemination.
The media was the most corrosive element in many respects. None of these events could have transpired without their willing
participation. Stories were pushed, facts were ignored, and narratives were promoted.
Let's start with a simple premise: The candidacy of Trump presented both an opportunity and a threat.
Initially not viewed with any real seriousness, Trump's campaign was seen as an opportunistic wedge in the election process. At
the same time, and particularly as the viability of his candidacy increased, Trump was seen as an existential threat to the established
political system.
The sudden legitimacy of Trump's candidacy was not welcomed by the U.S. political establishment. Here was a true political outsider
who held no traditional allegiances. He was brash and boastful, he ignored political correctness, he couldn't be bought, and he didn't
care what others thought of him -- he trusted himself.
Governing bodies in Britain and the European Union were also worried. Candidate Trump was openly challenging monetary policy,
regulations, and the power of special interests. He challenged Congress. He challenged the United Nations and the European Union.
He questioned everything.
Brennan played a crucial role in the creation of the Russia-collusion narrative and the spying on the Trump campaign. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty
Images)
Brennan became the point man in the operation to stop a potential Trump presidency. It remains unclear whether his role was self-appointed
or came from above. To embark on such a mission without direct presidential authority seems both a stretch of the imagination and
particularly foolhardy.
Brennan took unofficial foreign intelligence compiled by contacts, colleagues, and associates --
primarily from the UK , but also from other Five Eyes members, such as Australia.
Individuals in official positions in UK intelligence, such as Robert Hannigan -- head of the UK Government Communications Headquarters
(GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of the National Security Agency) -- partnered with former UK foreign intelligence members. Former MI6
head Sir Richard Dearlove
, former Ambassador Sir Andrew Wood, and private UK intelligence firm
Hakluyt all played a role.
In the summer of 2016, Hannigan traveled to Washington to
meet with Brennan
regarding alleged communications between the Trump campaign and Moscow. On Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration
-- Hannigan abruptly announced
his retirement. The Guardian openly
speculated that Hannigan's
resignation was directly related to the sharing of UK intelligence.
One method used to help establish evidence of collusion was the employment of "spy traps." Prominent among these were ones set
for Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page. The intent was to provide or establish connections between the Trump
campaign and Russia. The content and context mattered little as long as a connection could be established that could then be publicized.
The June 2016 Trump Tower meeting was another such attempt.
Western intelligence assets were used to initiate and establish these connections, particularly in the cases of Papadopoulos and
Page.
Ultimately, Brennan formed an inter-agency task
force comprising an estimated six agencies and/or government departments. The FBI, Treasury, and DOJ handled the domestic inquiry
into Trump and possible Russia connections. The CIA, Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the National Security Agency
(NSA) handled foreign and intelligence aspects.
Brennan's inter-agency task force is not to be confused with the July 2016 FBI counterintelligence investigation, which was formed
later at Brennan's urging.
During this time, Brennan also employed the use of
reverse targeting , which relates to the targeting of a foreign individual with the intent of capturing data on a U.S. citizen.
This effort was uncovered and
made public by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) in a March 2017
press conference :
"I have seen intelligence reports that clearly show the president-elect and his team were monitored and disseminated out in
intelligence-reporting channels. Details about persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent
foreign-intelligence value were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.
"From what I know right now, it looks like incidental collection. We don't know exactly how that was picked up but we're trying
to get to the bottom of it."
As this foreign intelligence -- unofficial in nature and outside of any traditional channels -- was gathered, Brennan began a
process of feeding his gathered intelligence to the FBI. Repeated transfers of foreign intelligence from the CIA director pushed
the FBI toward the establishment of a formal counterintelligence investigation. Brennan repeatedly noted this during
a May 23, 2017, congressional testimony :
"I made sure that anything that was involving U.S. persons, including anything involving the individuals involved in the Trump
campaign, was shared with the [FBI]."
Brennan also admitted that his intelligence helped establish
the FBI investigation:
"I was aware of intelligence and information about contacts between Russian officials and U.S. persons that raised concerns in
my mind about whether or not those individuals were cooperating with the Russians, either in a witting or unwitting fashion, and
it served as the basis for the FBI investigation to determine whether such collusion [or] cooperation occurred."
Once the FBI began its counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016, Brennan shifted his focus. Through a series of meetings
in August and September 2016, Brennan informed the congressional Gang of Eight regarding intelligence and information he had gathered.
Notably, each Gang of Eight member was briefed separately, calling into question whether each of the members received the same information.
Efforts to
block the release of the transcripts from each meeting remain ongoing.
This final report was used to continue pushing the Russia-collusion narrative following the election of President Donald Trump.
Notably, Admiral Mike Rogers of the NSA publicly dissented from the findings of the ICA, assigning only a moderate confidence level.
Although the FBI is technically part of the DOJ, it is best for the purposes of this article that the FBI and DOJ be viewed as
separate entities, each with its own related ties.
The FBI itself was comprised of various factions, with a particularly active element that has come to be known as the "insurance
policy group." It appears that this faction was led by FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and comprised other notable names such as
FBI agent Peter Strzok, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, and FBI general counsel James Baker.
The FBI established the counterintelligence investigation into alleged Russia collusion with the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016.
Comey initially refused to say whether the FBI was investigating possible connections between members of the Trump campaign and Russia.
He would continue to refuse to provide answers until March 20, 2017, when he disclosed the existence of the FBI investigation
during congressional testimony.
Comey also testified that he did not provide notification to the Gang of Eight until early March 2017 -- less than one month earlier.
This admission was in stark contrast to actions taken by Brennan, who had notified members of the Gang of Eight individually during
August and September 2016. It's likely that Brennan never informed Comey that he had briefed the Gang of Eight in 2016. Comey did
note that the DOJ "had been aware" of the investigation all along.
Comey opened the counterintelligence investigation into Trump on the urging of CIA Director John Brennan.
Following Comey's firing on May 9, 2017, the FBI's investigation was transferred to special counsel Robert Mueller. The
Mueller investigation remains ongoing.
The FBI's formal involvement with the
Steele dossier began on July 5, 2016,
when Mike Gaeta, an FBI agent and assistant legal attaché at the US Embassy in Rome, was dispatched to visit former MI6 spy Christopher
Steele in London. Gaeta would return from this meeting with a copy of Steele's first memo. This memo was given to Victoria Nuland
at the State Department, who passed it along to the FBI.
Gaeta, who also headed the FBI's Eurasian Organized Crime unit, had known Steele since at least 2010, when Steele had provided
assistance to the FBI's investigation into the
FIFA corruption
scandal .
Prior to the London meeting, Gaeta may also have met on a less formal basis with Steele
several weeks earlier.
"In June, Steele flew to Rome to brief the FBI contact with whom he had cooperated over FIFA," The Guardian reported. "His information
started to reach the bureau in Washington."
It's worth noting that there was no "dossier" until it was fully compiled in December 2016. There was only a sequence of documents
from Steele -- documents that were passed on individually -- as they were created. Therefore, from the FBI's legal perspective, they
didn't use the dossier. They used individual documents.
For the next month and a half, there appeared to be little contact between Steele and the FBI. However, the FBI's interest in
the dossier suddenly accelerated in late August 2016, when the bureau
asked Steele "for all information in his possession and for him to explain how the material had been gathered and to identify
his sources."
In September 2016, Steele traveled back to Rome to meet with the FBI's Eurasian squad once again. It's likely that the meeting
included several other FBI officials as well. According to a
House Intelligence Committee
minority memo , Steele's reporting reached the FBI counterintelligence team in mid-September 2016 -- the same time as Steele's
September trip to Rome.
The reason for the FBI's renewed interest had to do with an adviser to the Trump campaign -- Carter Page -- who had been in
contact with Stefan Halper, a CIA
and FBI source, since July 2016. Halper
arranged to meet with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page took a trip
to Moscow. Speakers at the symposium included Madeleine Albright, Vin Webber, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6.
Page was now the FBI's chosen target for a FISA warrant that would be obtained on Oct. 21, 2016. The Steele dossier would be the
primary evidence used in obtaining the FISA warrant, which would be renewed three separate times, including after Trump took office,
finally expiring in September 2017.
Former volunteer Trump campaign adviser Carter Page on Nov. 2, 2017. The FBI obtained a retroactive FISA spy warrant
on Page.
After being in contact with Page for 14 months, Halper stopped contact exactly as the final FISA warrant on Page expired. Page,
who has steadfastly maintained his innocence, was never charged with any crime by the FBI. Efforts for the declassification of the
Page FISA application are currently ongoing through the DOJ's Office of the Inspector General.
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page
Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were two prominent members of the FBI's "insurance policy" group. Strzok, a senior FBI agent, was the
deputy assistant director of FBI's Counterintelligence Division. Lisa Page, an FBI lawyer, served as special counsel to FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe.
Strzok was in charge of the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server for government business. He helped
FBI Director James Comey draft the statement exonerating Clinton and was personally responsible for changing specific wording within
that statement that reduced Clinton's legal liability. Specifically, Strzok changed the words "grossly negligent," which could be
a criminal offense, to "extremely careless."
Strzok also personally led the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into the alleged Trump–Russia collusion and signed the
documents that opened the investigation on July 31, 2016. He was one of the FBI agents who interviewed Trump's national security
adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn. Strzok met multiple times with DOJ official Bruce Ohr and received information from Steele at those
meetings.
Following the firing of FBI Director James Comey, Strzok would join the team of special counsel Robert Mueller. Two months later,
he was removed from that team after the DOJ inspector general discovered a lengthy series of texts between Strzok and Page that contained
politically charged messages. Strzok would be fired from the FBI in August 2018.
Both Strzok and Page engaged in strategic
leaking to the press. Page did so at the direction of McCabe, who directly
authorized Page to share information with Wall Street
Journal reporter Devlin Barrett. That information was used in an Oct. 30, 2016, article headlined
"FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe ." Page leaked to Barrett thinking she had been granted legal and official authorization
to do so.
McCabe would later initially deny providing such
authorization to the Office of Inspector General. Page, when confronted with McCabe's denials, produced texts refuting his statement.
It was these texts that led to the inspector general uncovering the texts between Strzok and Page.
The two exchanged thousands of texts, some of them indicating surveillance activities, over a two-year period. Texts sent between
Aug. 21, 2015, and June 25, 2017, have been made
public . The series comes
to an end with a final text by Page telling Strzok, "Don't ever text me again."
On Aug. 8, 2016, Stzrok wrote that they would prevent candidate Trump from becoming president:
Page: "[Trump is] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!"
Strzok: "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."
On Aug. 15, 2016, Strzok sent a text referring to an "insurance policy":
"I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office -- that there's no way [Trump] gets elected --
but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
The "insurance policy" appears to have been the effort to legitimize the Trump–Russia collusion narrative so that an FBI investigation,
led by McCabe, could continue unhindered.
Department of Justice
The Department of Justice, which comprises 60 agencies , was transformed
during the Obama years. The department is forbidden by federal law from hiring employees based on political affiliation.
However, a
series
of investigative articles by PJ Media published during Eric Holder's tenure as attorney general revealed an unsettling pattern
of ideological conformity among new hires at the DOJ: Only lawyers from the progressive left were hired. Not one single moderate
or conservative lawyer made the cut. This is significant as the DOJ enjoys significant latitude in determining who will be subject
to prosecution.
The DOJ's job in Spygate was to facilitate the legal side of surveillance while providing a protective layer of cover for all
those involved. The department became a repository of information and provided a protective wall between the investigative efforts
of the FBI and the legislative branch. Importantly, it also served as the firewall within the executive branch, serving as the insulating
barrier between the FBI and Obama officials. The department had become legendary for its stonewalling tactics with Congress.
DOJ Official Bruce Ohr on Aug. 28, 2018. Ohr passed on information from Christopher Steele to the FBI.
The DOJ, which was fully aware of the actions being taken by James Comey and the FBI, also became an active element acting against
members of the Trump campaign. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, along with Mary McCord, the head of the DOJ's National Security
Division, was actively
involved in efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn from his position as national security adviser to President Trump.
To this day, it remains unknown which individual was responsible for making public Flynn's call with the Russian ambassador. Flynn
ultimately pleaded guilty to a process crime: lying to the FBI. There have been
questions raised in Congress regarding the possible alteration of FD-302s, the written notes of Flynn's FBI interviews. Special
counsel Robert Mueller has repeatedly deferred Flynn's sentencing hearing.
David Laufman, deputy assistant attorney general in charge of counterintelligence at the DOJ's National Security Division, played
a key role in both the Clinton email server and Russia hacking investigations. Laufman is currently the attorney for Monica McLean,
the long-time friend of Christine Blasey Ford, who recently accused Judge Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her while in high
school. McLean was also
employed
by the FBI for 24 years.
Bruce Ohr was a significant DOJ official who played a
key role in Spygate. Ohr held
two important positions at the DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task
Force. As associate deputy attorney general, Ohr was just four offices away from then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and he
reported directly to her. As director of the task force, he was in charge of a program described as "the centerpiece of the attorney
general's drug strategy."
Ohr, one of the highest-ranking officials in the DOJ, was communicating on an ongoing basis with Steele, whom he had known
since at
least 2006 , well into mid-2017. He is also married to Nellie Ohr,
an expert on Russia and Eurasia who began working
for Fusion GPS sometime in
late 2015 . Nellie Ohr likely played a significant role in the construction of the dossier.
According to testimony from FBI agent Peter Strzok, he and Ohr met at least five times during 2016 and 2017. Strzok was working
directly with then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.
Additionally, Ohr met with the FBI at least
12 times between late November 2016 and May 2017 for a series of interviews. These meetings could have been used to
transmit information from Steele to the FBI. This came after the FBI had formally severed contact with Steele in late October
or early November 2016.
John Carlin is another notable figure with the DOJ. Carlin was an assistant attorney general and the head of the DOJ's National
Security Division until October 2016. His role will be discussed below in the section on FISA abuse.
The Battle Between Rosenstein and McCabe
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe held a pivotal role in what has become known as "Spygate." He directed the activities of Peter
Strzok and Lisa Page and was involved in all aspects of the Russia investigation. He was also mentioned in the infamous "insurance
policy" text message.
McCabe was a major component of the insurance policy.
On April 26, 2017, Rosenstein found himself appointed as the new deputy attorney general. He was placed into a somewhat chaotic
situation, as Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the ongoing Russia investigation a little less than two months
earlier, on March 2, 2017. This effectively meant that no one in the Trump administration had any oversight of the ongoing investigation
being conducted by the FBI and the DOJ.
Additionally, the leadership of then-FBI Director James Comey was coming under increased scrutiny as the result of actions taken
leading up to and following the election, particularly Comey's handling of the Clinton email investigation.
On May 9, 2017, Rosenstein wrote a memorandum recommending that Comey be fired. The subject of the memo was "Restoring Public
Confidence in the FBI." Comey was fired that day. McCabe was now the acting director of the FBI and was immediately under consideration
for the permanent position.
On the same day Comey was fired, McCabe would lie during an interview with agents from the FBI's Inspection Division (INSD) regarding
apparent leaks that were used in an Oct. 30, 2016, Wall Street Journal article, "FBI in Internal Feud Over Hillary Clinton Probe"
by Devlin Barrett. This would later be disclosed in the inspector general report, "A Report of Investigation of Certain Allegations
Relating to Former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe."
At the time, nobody, including the INSD agents, knew that McCabe had lied, nor were the darker aspects of McCabe's role in Spygate
fully known.
In late April or early May 2016, McCabe opened a federal criminal investigation on Sessions, regarding potential lack of candor
before Congress in relation to Sessions's contacts with Russians. Sessions was unaware of the investigation.
Sessions would later be cleared of any wrongdoing by special counsel Robert Mueller.
On the morning of May 16, 2017, Rosenstein reportedly suggested to McCabe that he secretly record President Trump. This remark
was reported in a New York Times article that was sourced from memos from the now-fired McCabe, along with testimony taken from former
FBI general counsel James Baker, who relayed a conversation he had with McCabe about the occurrence. Rosenstein issued a statement
denying the accusations.
The alleged comments by Rosenstein occurred at a meeting where McCabe was "pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation
into the president." An unnamed participant at the meeting, in comments to The Washington Post, framed the conversation somewhat
differently, noting Rosenstein responded sarcastically to McCabe, saying, "What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?"
Later, on the same day that Rosenstein had his meetings with McCabe, President Trump met with Mueller, reportedly as an interview
for the FBI director job. On May 17, 2017, the day after President Trump's meeting with Mueller -- and the day after Rosenstein's
encounters with McCabe -- Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel.
The May 17 appointment of Mueller in effect shifted control of the Russia investigation from the FBI and McCabe to Mueller. Rosenstein
would retain ultimate authority for the probe and any expansion of Mueller's investigation required authorization from Rosenstein.
Interestingly, without Comey's memo leaks, a special counsel might not have been appointed -- the FBI, and possibly McCabe, would
have remained in charge of the Russia investigation. McCabe was probably not going to become the permanent FBI director, but he was
reportedly under consideration. Regardless, without Comey's leak, McCabe would have retained direct involvement and the FBI would
have retained control.
On July 28, 2017, McCabe lied to Inspector General Michael Horowitz while under oath regarding authorization of the leaking to
The Wall Street Journal. At this point, Horowitz knew McCabe was lying, but did not yet know of the May 9 INSD interview with McCabe.
On Aug. 2, 2017, Rosenstein secretly issued Mueller a revised memo on "the scope of investigation and definition of authority"
that remains heavily redacted. The full purpose of this memo remains unknown. On this same day, Christopher Wray was named as the
new FBI director.
Two days later, on Aug. 4, 2017, Sessions announced that the FBI had created a new leaks investigation unit. Rosenstein and Wray
were tasked with overseeing all leak investigations.
That Aug. 2 memo from Rosenstein to Mueller may have been specifically designed to remove any residual FBI influence -- specifically
that of McCabe -- from the Russia investigation. The appointment of Wray as FBI director helped cement this. McCabe was finally completely
neutralized.
On March 16, 2018, McCabe was fired for lying under oath at least three different times and is currently the subject of a grand
jury investigation.
State Department
The State Department, with its many contacts within foreign governments, became a conduit for the flow of information. The transfer
of Christopher Steele's first dossier memo was personally
facilitated by Victoria Nuland, the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs. Nuland gave approval for
FBI agent Michael Gaeta to travel to London to obtain the memo from Steele. The memo may have passed directly from her to FBI leadership.
Secretary of State John Kerry was also given a copy.
Steele was already well-known within the State Department. Following Steele's involvement in the FIFA scandal investigation, he
began to provide reports
informally to the State Department. The reports were written for a "private client" but were "shared widely within the U.S. State
Department, and sent up to Secretary of State John Kerry and Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, who was in charge of
the U.S.
response to Putin's annexation of Crimea and covert invasion of eastern Ukraine," the Guardian reported.
Nuland passed on parts of the Steele dossier to the FBI. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
In July 2016, when the FBI wanted to send Gaeta to visit Steele in London, the bureau
sought permission from the office of Nuland, who provided this version of events during a Feb. 4, 2018,
appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation":
"In the middle of July, when [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned, he passed two to four pages of short
points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI
if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation. That's
something for the FBI to investigate."
Steele also
met with Jonathan Winer, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement and former special envoy
for Libya. Steele and Winer had known each other since at least 2010. In an opinion article in The Washington Post, Winer wrote the
following:
"In September 2016, Steele and I met in Washington and discussed the information now known as the 'dossier.' Steele's sources
suggested that the Kremlin not only had been behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign
but also had compromised Trump and developed ties with his associates and campaign."
In a strange turn of events, Winer also received a
separate dossier , very similar to Steele's, from long-time Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal. This "second dossier" had been
compiled by another longtime Clinton operative, former journalist Cody Shearer, and echoed claims made in the Steele dossier. Winer
then met with Steele in late September 2016 and gave Steele a copy of the "second dossier." Steele went on to
share this second dossier with the FBI, which may have used it to corroborate his dossier.
Winer passed on memos from Christopher Steele to Victoria Nuland. (State Department)
Other foreign officials also used conduits into the State Department. Alexander Downer, Australia's high commissioner to the UK,
reportedly funneled his conversation
with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos -- later used as a reason to open the FBI's counterintelligence investigation --
directly to the U.S. Embassy in London.
"The Downer details landed with the embassy's then-chargé d'affaires, Elizabeth Dibble, who previously served as a principal deputy
assistant secretary in Mrs. Clinton's State Department," The Wall Street Journal's Kimberley Strassel wrote in a May 31, 2018,
article .
If true, this would mean that neither Australian intelligence nor the Australian government alerted the FBI to the Papadopoulos
information. What happened with the Downer details, and to whom they were ultimately relayed, remains unknown.
Curiously, details surprisingly similar to the Papadopoulos–Downer conversation show up in the
first memo written
by Steele on June 20, 2016:
"A dossier of compromising information on Hillary Clinton has been collated by the Russian Intelligence Services over many
years and mainly comprises bugged conversations she had on various visits to Russia and intercepted phone calls. It has not yet
been distributed abroad, including to Trump."
Clinton Campaign and the DNC
The Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee both occupied a unique position. They had the most to gain but they
also had the most to lose. And they stood willing and ready to do whatever was necessary to win. Hillary Clinton's campaign manager,
Robby Mook, is credited with being the first to raise the specter of candidate Donald Trump's alleged collusion with Russia.
The entire Clinton campaign willfully promoted the narrative of Russia–Trump collusion despite the uncomfortable fact that they
were the ones who had engaged the services of Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele through their law firm Perkins Coie. Information
flowed from the campaign -- sometimes through Perkins Coie, other times through affiliates -- ultimately making its way into the
media and sometimes to the FBI. Information from the Clinton campaign may also have ended up in the Steele dossier.
Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for the Clinton campaign, in tandem with Jake Sullivan, the senior policy adviser
to the campaign,
took the lead in briefing the press on the Trump–Russia collusion story.
Another example of this behavior can be seen from an instance when Perkins Coie lawyer Michael Sussmann
leaked information from Steele and Fusion GPS to Franklin Foer of Slate magazine. This event is described in the House Intelligence
Committee's final report on
Russian active measures
, in footnote 43 on page 57. Foer then published the article
"Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? " on Oct. 31, 2016. The article concerns allegations regarding a server in the
Trump Tower.
The Slate article managed to attract the immediate attention of Clinton, who posted a
tweet on the same day the article was
published:
"Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank."
Attached to her tweet was a
statement from Sullivan:
"This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow. Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert
server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.
"This secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump's ties to Russia. It certainly seems the Trump Organization
felt it had something to hide, given that it apparently took steps to conceal the link when it was discovered by journalists."
These statements, which were later proven to be incorrect, are all the more disturbing with the hindsight knowledge that it was
a senior Clinton/DNC lawyer who helped plant the story. And given the prepared statement by Sullivan, the Clinton campaign knew this.
This type of behavior would be engaged in repeatedly -- damning leaks leading to media stories, followed by ready attacks from
the Clinton campaign.
Alexandra Chalupa is a Ukrainian-American operative who was consulting for the Democratic National Committee. Chalupa
met with top officials in the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington in an effort to expose ties between Trump, Paul Manafort, and Russia.
Chalupa began investigating
Manafort in 2014. In late 2015, Chalupa expanded her opposition research on Manafort to include Trump's ties to Russia. In January
2016, Chalupa shared her information with a senior DNC official.
Chalupa's meetings with DNC and Ukrainian officials would continue. On April 26, 2016, investigative reporter Michael Isikoff
published a story
on Yahoo News about Manafort's business dealings with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. It was later learned from a DNC email leaked
by Wikileaks that Chalupa had been working with Isikoff
-- the same journalist Christopher Steele
leaked to
in September 2016. Manafort would later be indicted for Foreign Agents Registration Act violations that occurred during the Obama
administration.
Perkins Coie
International law firm Perkins Coie served as the legal arm for both the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Ties to Perkins Coie extended
beyond the DNC into the Obama White House.
Bob Bauer, a partner at the law firm and founder of its political law practice, served as
White House counsel to President Barack Obama throughout 2010 and 2011. Bauer was also
general counsel to Obama's campaign organization, Obama for America, in 2008 and 2012.
Perkins Coie partners Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann each played critical roles and were the ones who hired Fusion GPS and Steele.
Sussmann
personally handled the alleged hack of the DNC server. He also transmitted information, likely from Steele and Fusion GPS, to
James Baker, then-chief counsel at the FBI, and to several members of the press.
Perkins Coie partner Michael Sussmann. Sussmann transmitted information to FBI chief counsel James Baker and several
journalists. (Courtesy Perkins Coie)
According to a
letter
dated Oct. 24, 2017, written by Matthew Gehringer, general counsel at Perkins Coie, the firm was approached by Fusion GPS founder
Glenn Simpson in early March 2016 regarding the possibility of hiring Fusion GPS to continue opposition research into the Trump campaign.
Simpson's overtures were successful, and in April 2016, Perkins Coie
hired
Fusion GPS on behalf of the DNC.
Sometime in April or May 2016, Fusion GPS
hired Christopher Steele. During
this same period, Fusion also reportedly
hired Nellie Ohr, the wife of Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr. Steele would complete his first memo on June 20, 2016,
and send it to Fusion via enciphered mail.
Perkins Coie appears to have also been acting as a conduit between the DNC and the FBI.
Documents suggest that Sussmann was feeding information to FBI general counsel James Baker and at least one journalist ahead
of the FBI's application for a FISA warrant on the Trump campaign.
The information provided by Sussmann may have been used by the FBI as "corroborating information."
Obama Administration
The Obama administration provided a simultaneous layer of protection and facilitation for the entire effort. One example is
provided by
Section
2.3 of Executive Order 12333 , also known as Obama's
data-sharing
order . With the passage of the order, agencies and individuals were able to ask the NSA for access to specific surveillance
simply by claiming the intercepts contained relevant information that was useful to a particular mission.
Section 2.3 had been expected to be finalized by early to mid-2016. Instead, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper didn't
sign off on Section 2.3 until Dec. 15, 2016. The order was finalized when Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed it on Jan. 3, 2017.
The reason for the delay could relate to the fact that while the executive order made it easier to share intelligence between
agencies, it also limited certain types of information from going to the White House.
An example of this was provided by Evelyn Farkas during a March 2, 2017,
MSNBC interview , where she detailed how the Obama administration
gathered and disseminated intelligence on the Trump team:
"I was urging my former colleagues and, frankly speaking, the people on the Hill 'Get as much information as you can. Get as
much intelligence as you can before President Obama leaves the administration.'
"The Trump folks, if they found out how we knew what we knew about the Trump staff's dealing with Russians, [they] would try
to compromise those sources and methods, meaning we would no longer have access to that intelligence. That's why you have the
leaking."
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia Evelyn Farkas on May 6, 2014. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Many of the Obama administration's efforts appear to have been structural in nature, such as establishing new procedures or creating
impediments to oversight that enabled much of the surveillance abuse to occur.
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz was appointed by Obama in 2011. From the very start, he found his duties throttled by the
attorney general's office. According to congressional
testimony by Horowitz:
"We got access to information up to 2010 in all of these categories. No law changed in 2010. No policy changed. It was simply
a decision by the General Counsel's Office in 2010 that they viewed, now, the law differently. And as a result, they weren't going
to give us that information."
These new restrictions were
put in place by Attorney General Eric Holder and Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
On Aug. 5, 2014, Horowitz and other inspectors general sent a
letter to Congress asking for unimpeded access to all records. Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates responded on July 20, 2015,
with a 58-page
memorandum . The memo specifically denied the inspector general access to any information collected under Title III -- including
intercepted communications and national security letters.
The New York Times recently
disclosed that national security letters were used in the surveillance of the Trump campaign.
At other times, the Obama administration's efforts were more direct. The
Intelligence Community assessment was released
internally on Jan. 5, 2017. On this same day, Obama held an undisclosed White House meeting to discuss the dossier with national
security adviser Susan Rice, FBI Director James Comey, and Yates. Rice would later send herself an email
documenting
the meeting.
The following day, Brennan, Clapper, and Comey attached a written summary of the Steele dossier to the classified briefing they
gave Obama. Comey then met with President-elect Trump to inform him of the dossier. This meeting took place just hours after Comey,
Brennan, and Clapper formally briefed Obama on both the Intelligence Community assessment and the Steele dossier.
Comey would only inform Trump of the "salacious" details contained within the dossier. He later
explained on CNN in an April 2018 interview
why:
"Because that was the part that the leaders of the Intelligence Community agreed he needed to be told about."
Shortly after Comey's meeting with Trump, both the Trump–Comey meeting and the existence of the dossier were leaked to CNN. The
significance of the meeting was material, as Comey
noted in
a Jan. 7 memo he wrote:
"Media like CNN had them and were looking for a news hook. I said it was important that we not give them the excuse to write
that the FBI has the material."
Clapper leaked information to CNN, after which he publicly condemned the leaks. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
The media had widely dismissed the dossier as unsubstantiated and, therefore, unreportable. It was only after learning that Comey
briefed Trump that
CNN reported
on the dossier. It was later
revealed that DNI James Clapper personally leaked Comey's meeting with Trump to CNN.
The Obama administration also directly participated in a series of
intelligence unmaskings
, the process whereby a U.S. citizen's identity is revealed from collected surveillance. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha
Power reportedly engaged in hundreds of unmasking requests. Rice has admitted to doing the same.
The Obama administration engaged in the ultimately successful effort to oust Trump's newly appointed national security adviser,
Gen. Michael Flynn. Yates, along with Mary McCord, head of the DOJ's National Security Division,
led that effort
.
Executive Order 13762
President Barack Obama issued a last-minute executive order on Jan. 13, 2017, that altered the line of succession within the DOJ.
The action was not done in consultation with the incoming Trump administration.
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates was fired on Jan. 30, 2017, by a newly inaugurated President Trump for refusing to uphold
the president's executive order limiting travel from certain terror-prone countries. Yates was initially supposed to serve in her
position until Jeff Sessions was confirmed as attorney general.
Obama's executive order placed the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia next in line behind the department's senior leadership.
The attorney at the time was Channing Phillips.
Phillips was first hired by former Attorney General Eric Holder in 1994 for a position in the D.C. U.S. attorney's office. Phillips,
after serving as a senior adviser to Holder, stayed on after he was replaced by Attorney General Loretta Lynch.
It appears the Obama administration was hoping the Russia investigation would default to Channing in the event Sessions was forced
to recuse himself from the investigation. Sessions, whose confirmation hearings began three days before the order, was already coming
under intense scrutiny.
The implementation of the order may also tie into Yates's efforts to remove Gen. Michael Flynn over his call with the Russian
ambassador.
Trump ignored the succession order, as he is legally allowed to do, and instead appointed Dana Boente, the U.S. attorney for the
Eastern District of Virginia, as acting attorney general on Jan. 30, 2017, the same day Yates was fired.
Trump issued a new executive order on Feb. 9, 2017, the same day Sessions was sworn in, reversing Obama's prior order.
On March 10, 2017, Trump fired 46 Obama-era U.S. attorneys, including Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan. These firings
appear to have been unexpected.
Media
In some respects, the media has played the most disingenuous of roles. Areas of investigation that historically would have proven
irresistible to reporters of the past have been steadfastly ignored. False narratives have been all-too-willingly promoted and facts
ignored. Fusion GPS personally made a
series of payments to several as-of-yet-
unnamed reporters .
The majority of the mainstream media has represented positions of the DNC and the Clinton campaign.
Steele met with members of certain media with relative frequency. In
September 2016 ,
he met with a number of U.S. journalists for "The New York Times, the Washington Post, Yahoo! News, the New Yorker and CNN," according
to The Guardian. It was during this period that Steele met with Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News.
In mid-October
2016, Steele returned to New York and met with reporters again. Toward the end of October, Steele spoke via Skype with Mother
Jones reporter David Corn.
Leaking, including felony leaking of classified information, has been widespread. The Carter Page FISA warrant -- likely the
unredacted version -- has been in the possession of The Washington Post and The New York Times since March 2017. Traditionally, the
intelligence community leaked to The Washington Post while the DOJ leaked to sources within The New York Times. This was a historical
pattern that stood until this election. The leaking became so widespread, even this tradition was broken.
On April 3, 2017, BuzzFeed reporter Ali Watkins wrote the article "
A Former Trump Adviser Met With a Russian Spy ." In the article, she identified "Male-1," referred to in
court documents
relating to the case of Russian spy Evgeny Buryakov, as Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, who had provided the FBI with assistance
in the case. Just over a week later, on April 11, 2017, a Washington Post article, "
FBI Obtained FISA Warrant to Monitor Former Trump Adviser Carter Page ," confirmed the existence of the October 2016 Page FISA
warrant.
The information contained within both articles likely came via felony leaks from James Wolfe, former director of security
for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who was arrested on June 7, 2018, and
charged with one count of lying
to the FBI. Wolfe's indictment
alleges that he was leaking classified information to multiple reporters over an extended period of time.
Reporter Ali Watkins likely received the undredacted FISA application on Carter Page from James Wolfe.
It appears probable that Wolfe leaked unredacted copies of the Page FISA application. According to the
indictment , Wolfe
exchanged 82 text messages with
Watkins on March 17, 2017. That same evening they engaged in a 28-minute phone call. The original Page FISA application is 83 pages
long, including one final signatory page.
In the public version of the application, there are 37 fully redacted pages. In addition to that, several other pages have redactions
for all but the header. There are only two pages in the entire document that contain no redactions.
Why would Wolfe bother to send 37 pages of complete redactions? It seems more than plausible that Wolfe took pictures of the original
unredacted FISA application and sent them by text to Watkins.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes has repeatedly
stated that evidence within the FISA application
shows the counterintelligence agencies were abused by the Obama administration. Most of the mainstream media has known this.
Despite this, most major news organizations for over two years have promoted the Russia-collusion narrative. Despite ample evidence
having come out to the contrary, they have not admitted they were wrong, likely because doing so would mean they would have to admit
their complicity.
Foreign Intelligence
UK and Australian intelligence agencies also played meaningful roles during the 2016 presidential election.
Britain's GCHQ was involved in
collecting information regarding then-candidate Trump and transmitting it to the United States. In the summer of 2016, Robert
Hannigan, the head of GCHQ, flew from London to
meet personally
with then-CIA Director John Brennan, The Guardian reported.
Former GCHQ head Robert Hannigan in this file photo. Hannigan transmitted information regarding Donald Trump to John
Brennan in the summer of 2016. (Romeo Gacad/AFP/Getty Images)
Hannigan's meeting was noteworthy because Brennan wasn't Hannigan's counterpart. That position belonged to NSA Director Mike Rogers.
In the following year, Hannigan
abruptly announced
his retirement on Jan. 23, 2017 -- three days after Trump's inauguration.
As GCHQ was gathering intelligence, low-level Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser George Papadopoulos appears to have been targeted
after a series of highly coincidental meetings. Maltese professor Josef Mifsud, Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, FBI informant
Stefan Halper, and officials from the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) all crossed paths with Papadopoulos -- some repeatedly
so.
Christopher Steele, who authored the dossier on Trump, was an MI6 agent while the agency was headed by Sir Richard Dearlove. Steele
retains close ties with Dearlove.
Dearlove has ties to most of the parties mentioned. It was he who advised Steele and his business partner, Chris Burrows, to
work with a top British government official to pass along information to the FBI in the fall of 2016. He also was a speaker at
the July 2016 Cambridge symposium that Halper invited Carter
Page to attend.
Dearlove knows Halper through their
mutual association at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. Dearlove also knows Sir Iain Lobban, a former head of GCHQ, who is
an advisory board member at British strategic intelligence
and advisory firm Hakluyt , which was founded by former MI6 members and
retains close ties to UK intelligence services.
Halper has historical connections to Hakluyt through Jonathan Clarke, with whom he has
co-authored two books.
Downer, who
met Papadopoulos in a May 2016 meeting
established through a chain
of two intermediaries, served on the advisory board of Hakluyt
from 2008 to 2014. He reportedly still
maintains contact with Hakluyt officials. Information from his meeting with Papadopoulos was later used by the FBI to establish
the bureau's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. Downer has changed his version of events multiple times.
The Steele dossier was fed into U.S. channels through several different sources. One such source was Sir Andrew Wood, the
former
British ambassador to Russia, who had been briefed about the dossier by Steele. Wood later
relayed information regarding the dossier to Sen. John McCain, who dispatched David Kramer, a fellow at the McCain Institute,
to London to meet with Steele in November 2016. McCain would later admit in a Jan. 11, 2017,
statement that he had personally passed on the dossier to then-FBI Director James Comey.
Trump, after issuing an order for the declassification of documents and text messages related to the Russia-collusion investigations
-- including parts of the Carter Page FISA warrant application -- received phone calls from two U.S. allies saying, "Please, can
we talk." Those "allies" were almost certainly the UK and Australia.
In a Twitter post , Trump wrote that
the "key Allies called to ask not to release" the documents.
Questions to be asked are why is it that two of our allies would find themselves so opposed to the release of these classified
documents that a coordinated plea would be made directly to the president? And why would these same allies have even the slightest
idea of what was contained in these classified U.S. documents?
Britain and Australia appear to know full well what those documents contain, and their attempt to prevent their public release
appears to be because they don't want their role in events surrounding the 2016 presidential election to be made public.
Fusion GPS/Orbis/Christopher Steele
Glenn Simpson, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, is co-founder of Fusion GPS, along with Peter Fritsch and Tom Catan. Fusion
was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign through law firm Perkins Coie to produce and disseminate the Steele dossier used against
Trump. The dossier would later be the primary evidence used to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
The company was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC–through law firm Perkins Coie–to produce the dossier on Trump.
Christopher Steele, who retains close ties to UK intelligence, worked for MI6 from 1987 until his retirement in 2009, when he
and his partner, Chris Burrows, founded Orbis Intelligence. Steele
maintains contact with British intelligence,
Sir Richard Dearlove
, and UK intelligence firm Hakluyt.
Steele appears to have been
represented
by lawyer Adam Waldman, who also represented Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. We know this from
texts sent by Waldman. On April 10, 2017, Waldman sent this to Sen. Mark Warner:
"Hi. Steele: would like to get a bi partisan letter from the committee; Assange: I convinced him to make serious and important
concessions and am discussing those w DOJ; Deripaska: willing to testify to congress but interested in state of play w Manafort.
I will be with him next tuesday for a week."
Steele also appears to have
lobbied on behalf of Deripaska, who was discussed in
emails between Bruce Ohr and Steele that were recently
disclosed by the Washington Examiner:
"Steele said he was 'circulating some recent sensitive Orbis reporting' on Deripaska that suggested Deripaska was not a 'tool'
of the Kremlin. Steele said he would send the reporting to a name that is redacted in the email."
Fusion GPS was also employed by Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya in a previous case. Veselnitskaya was involved in litigation
pitting Russian firm Prevezon Holdings against British-American financier William Browder. Veselnitskaya hired U.S. law firm BakerHostetler,
who, in turn, hired Fusion GPS to dig up dirt on Browder. Veselnitskaya was one of the participants at the June 2016 Trump Tower
meeting, at which she discussed the
Magnitsky Act .
Fox News reported on Nov. 9, 2017, that Simpson
met with Veselnitskaya immediately before and after the Trump Tower meeting.
A declassified top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court report released on April 26, 2017, revealed that government
agencies, including the FBI, CIA, and NSA, had improperly accessed Americans' communications. The FBI specifically provided outside
contractors with access to raw surveillance data on American citizens without proper oversight.
Communications and other data of members of the Trump campaign may have been accessed in this way.
Nellie Ohr, the wife of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr, was hired by Fusion GPS to work on the dossier on Trump.
Bruce and Nellie Ohr have
known Simpson since at least 2010 and have known Steele since at least 2006. The Ohrs and Simpson worked together on a
DOJ report in 2010 . In that report, Nellie Ohr's biography
lists her as working for Open Source Works, which is part of the CIA. Simpson met with Bruce Ohr
before and after the 2016 election.
Bruce Ohr had been in
contact repeatedly with Steele during the 2016 presidential campaign -- while Steele was constructing his dossier. Ohr later
actively shared information he received from Steele with the FBI, after the agency had terminated Steele as a source. Interactions
between Ohr and Steele stretched for months into the first year of Trump's presidency and were documented in a number of FD-302s
-- memos that summarize interviews with him by the FBI.
Spy Traps
In an effort to put forth evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, it appears that several different spy traps
were set, with varying degrees of success. Many of these efforts appear to center around Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos
and involve London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, who has
ties to Western intelligence, particularly in the UK.
Papadopoulos and Mifsud
both worked
at the London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP). Mifsud appears to have joined LCILP around
November
2015 . Papadopoulos reportedly
joined
LCILP sometime in late February 2016 after leaving Ben Carson's presidential campaign. However, some
reports indicate Papadopoulos joined LCILP in November
or December of 2015. Mifsud and Papadopoulos reportedly never crossed paths
until March 14, 2016, in Italy.
Mifsud introduced Papadopoulos to several Russians, including Olga Polonskaya, whom Mifsud introduced as "Putin's niece," and
Ivan Timofeev, an official at a state-sponsored think tank called the Russian International Affairs Council. Both Papadopoulos and
Mifsud were interviewed by the FBI. Papadopoulos was ultimately charged with a process crime and was recently sentenced to 14 days
in prison for lying to the FBI. Mifsud was never charged by the FBI.
Throughout this period, Papadopoulos continuously pushed for meetings between Trump campaign officials and Russian contacts but
was ultimately unsuccessful in establishing any meetings.
Papadopoulos met with Australian diplomat Alexander Downer on May 10, 2016. The Papadopoulos–Downer meeting has been portrayed
as a
chance encounter in a bar. That does not appear to be the case.
Papadopoulos was introduced
to Downer through a chain of two intermediaries who said Downer wanted to meet with Papadopoulos. Another individual happened
to
be in London at exactly the same time: the FBI's head of counterintelligence, Bill Priestap. The purpose of Priestap's visit
remains unknown.
The Papadopoulos–Downer
meeting was later used to establish the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into Trump–Russia collusion. It was repeatedly
reported that Papadopoulos told Downer that Russia had Hillary Clinton's emails. This is incorrect.
Foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign was approached by several individuals with ties to UK and U.S. intelligence
agencies. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
According to Downer, Papadopoulos at some point
mentioned the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.
"During that conversation, he [Papadopoulos] mentioned the Russians might use material that they have on Hillary Clinton in the
lead-up to the election, which may be damaging,'' Downer told
The Australian about the Papadopoulos meeting in an April 2018 article. "He didn't say dirt, he said material that could be damaging
to her. No, he said it would be damaging. He didn't say what it was."
Downer, while serving as Australia's foreign minister, was
responsible for one of the largest foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation: $25 million from the Australian government.
Unconfirmed media reports, including a Jan. 12, 2017,
BBC article , have suggested that the FBI attempted
to obtain two FISA warrants in June and July 2016 that were denied by the FISA court. It's likely that Papadopoulos was an intended
target of these failed FISAs.
Interestingly, there is no mention of Papadopoulos in the Steele dossier. Paul Manafort, Carter Page, former Trump lawyer Michael
Cohen, Gen. Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski are all listed in the Steele dossier.
Papadopoulos may have started out assisting the FBI or CIA and later discovered that he was being set up for surveillance himself.
After failing to obtain a spy warrant on the Trump campaign using Papadopoulos, the FBI set its sights on campaign volunteer Carter
Page. By this time, the counterintelligence investigation was in the process of being established, and we know now that it was formalized
with no official intelligence. The FBI needed some sort of legal cover. They needed a retroactive warrant. And they got one on Oct.
21, 2016. The Page FISA warrant would be renewed three times and remain in force until September 2017.
Stefan Halper met with Page for the first time on July 11, 2016, at a
Cambridge symposium , just three days after Page's July 2016
Moscow trip. As noted previously, former MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove was a speaker at the symposium. Halper and Dearlove have known
each other for years and maintain several mutual associations.
Page was already known to the FBI. The Page FISA warrant application references the Buryakov spy case and an FBI interview with
Page. Current information suggests there was only
one meeting between Page and the FBI in 2016. It happened on March 2, 2016. It was in relation to Victor Podobnyy, who was named
in the Buryakov case.
Page, who
cooperated with the FBI on the case, almost certainly was providing testimony or details against Podobnyy. Page had been contacted
by Podobnyy in 2013 and had previously provided information to the FBI. Buryakov
pleaded guilty on March 11, 2016 -- nine days after Page met with the FBI on the case -- and was
sentenced to 30 months in prison on May 25, 2016. On April 5, 2017, Buryakov was granted early release and was
deported to Russia.
FBI informant Stefan Halper approached Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes
said in August that exculpatory evidence
on Page exists that wasn't included by the DOJ and the FBI in the FISA application and subsequent renewals. The exculpatory evidence
likely relates specifically to Page's role in the Buryakov case.
If the FBI failed to disclose Page's cooperation with the bureau or materially misrepresented his involvement in its application
to the FISA Court, it means that the FBI's Woods procedures, which govern FISA applications, were violated.
Page has not been arrested or charged with any crime related to the investigation.
FISA Abuse
Admiral Mike Rogers, while director of the NSA, was personally responsible for
uncovering an unprecedented level of FISA abuse that would later be documented in a 99-page
unsealed FISA
court ruling . As the FISA court noted in the April 26, 2017, ruling, the abuses had been occurring since at least November 2015:
"The FBI had disclosed raw FISA information, including but not limited to Section 702-acquired information, to private contractors.
"Private contractors had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.
"Contractors had access to raw FISA information that went well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's requests."
The FISA Court report is particularly focused on the FBI:
"The Court is concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard of minimization rules and whether the FBI may be engaging in similar
disclosures of raw Section 702 information that have not been reported."
The FISA Court
disclosed that illegal NSA database searches were endemic. Private contractors, employed by the FBI, were given full access to
the NSA database. Once in the contractors' possession, the data couldn't be traced.
In April 2016, after Rogers became aware of
improper
contractor access to raw FISA data on March 9, 2016, he
directed the NSA's Office
of Compliance to conduct a "fundamental baseline review of compliance associated with 702."
On April 18, 2016, Rogers shut down all outside contractor access to raw FISA information -- specifically outside contractors
working for the FBI.
Then-NSA Director Adm. Mike Rogers on May 23, 2017. Rogers uncovered widespread abuse of FISA data by the FBI. (Saul
Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)
DOJ National Security Division (NSD) head John Carlin filed the government's proposed
2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016. Carlin knew the general status of compliance review by Rogers. The NSD was
part of the review. Carlin failed to disclose a critical Jan. 7, 2016,
report by the Office
of the Inspector General and associated FISA abuse to the FISA Court in his 2016 certification. Carlin also failed to disclose
Rogers's ongoing Section 702 compliance review.
The following day, on Sept. 27, 2016, Carlin
announced his resignation, effective Oct. 15, 2016.
After receiving a briefing by the NSA compliance officer on Oct. 20, 2016, detailing
numerous "about query"
violations from the 702 NSA compliance audit, Rogers shut down all "about query" activity the next day and
reported his findings
to the DOJ. "About queries" are searches based on communications containing a reference "about" a surveillance target but that are
not "to" or "from" the target.
On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and the FBI sought and received a Title I FISA probable-cause order authorizing electronic surveillance
on Carter Page from the FISA Court.
At this point, the FISA Court was still unaware of the Section 702 violations.
On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally
informed
the FISA Court of his findings. On Oct. 26, 2016, Rogers appeared formally before the FISA Court and presented the written findings
of his audit.
The FISA Court had been unaware of the query violations until they were presented to the court by Rogers.
Carlin didn't disclose his knowledge of FISA abuse in the annual Section 702 certifications in order to avoid raising suspicions
at the FISA Court ahead of receiving the Page FISA warrant.
The FBI and the NSD were literally racing against Rogers's investigation in order to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page.
While all this was transpiring, DNI James Clapper and Defense Secretary Ash Carter submitted a
recommendation that Rogers be removed from his post as NSA director.
The move to fire Rogers, which ultimately failed, originated sometime in mid-October 2016 -- exactly when Rogers was preparing
to present his findings to the FISA Court.
The Insurance Policy
Ever since the release of FBI text messages revealing the existence of an "insurance policy," the term has been the subject of
wide speculation.
Some observers have suggested that the insurance policy was the FISA spy warrant used to monitor Trump campaign adviser Carter
Page and, by extension, other members of the Trump campaign. This interpretation is too narrow and fails to capture the underlying
meaning of the text.
The insurance policy was the actual process of establishing the Trump–Russia collusion narrative.
It encompassed actions undertaken in late 2016 and early 2017, including the leaking of the Steele dossier and James Clapper's
leaks of James Comey's briefing to President Trump. The intent behind these actions was simple. The legitimization of the investigation
into the Trump campaign.
The strategy involved the recusal of Trump officials with the intent that Andrew McCabe would end up running the investigation.
The Steele dossier, which was paid for by the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee, served as the
foundation for the Russia narrative.
The intelligence community, led by CIA Director John Brennan and DNI James Clapper, used the dossier as a launching pad for creating
their Intelligence Community assessment.
This report, which was presented to Obama in December 2016, despite NSA Director Mike Rogers having only moderate confidence in
its assessment, became one of the core pieces of the narrative that Russia interfered with the 2016 elections.
Through intelligence community leaks, and in collusion with willing media outlets, the narrative that Russia helped Trump win
the elections was aggressively pushed throughout 2017.
Spygate
Spygate represents the biggest political scandal in our nation's history. A sitting administration actively colluded with a political
campaign to affect the outcome of a U.S. presidential election. Government agencies were weaponized and a complicit media spread
intelligence community leaks as facts.
But a larger question remains: How long has the United States been subject to interference from the intelligence community and
our political agencies? Was the 2016 presidential election a one-time aberration, or is this episode symptomatic of a larger pattern
extending back decades?
The intensity, scale, and coordination suggest something greater than overzealous actions taken during a single election. They
represent a unified reaction of the establishment to a threat posed by a true outsider -- a reaction that has come to be known as
Spygate.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed
on Twitter @themarketswork.
"... The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to overturn the results of elections. ..."
"... At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this. ..."
"... I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee – Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this conspiracy. ..."
"... It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' – notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further. ..."
"... They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. ..."
"... Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal. ..."
"... The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue; ..."
"... Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law. ..."
"... It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection" operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.) ..."
There were no major disagreements between Mueller and his managers at the U.S. Department of
Justice (DOJ).
The Russians who tried to interfere in the 2016 election were exposed and charged -- but no
American was charged with any effort to conspire with Moscow and hijack the election.
the "Steele dossier" that was the main FISA evidence was paid for with funds
from Hillary Clinton
's campaign and the Democratic Party;
Christopher Steele, the dossier's author, had told a senior DOJ official he was desperate to
defeat Trump;
most of the dossier was not verified before it was used as evidence of alleged Trump-Russia
collusion; and
agents collected statements from key defendants such as Papadopoulos and Carter Page during
interactions with an FBI informant that strongly suggested their innocence.
Such omissions are so glaring as to constitute defrauding a federal court. And each and
every participant to those omissions needs to be brought to justice.
An upcoming DOJ inspector general's report should trigger the beginning of that
accountability in a court of law, and President Trump can assist the effort by declassifying
all evidence of wrongdoing by FBI, CIA and DOJ officials. " The Hill
------------
Pilgrims, the seditious conspiracy to depose the elected president of the United States for
conspiracy to commit treason with the Government of the Russian Federation has been
defeated.
The bent cops at the FBI and the madmen like Brennan, Clapper and Comey, who treacherously
used the government's forces against the Constitution, must be punished so severely as to make
an example that will dissuade other midgets on horseback from making similar attempts to
overturn the results of elections.
At the bottom of the cauldron overflowing with political misdeeds shines the face of Hillary
Clinton and the army of clever people who ran her 2016 campaign. They devised the clever,
clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with Washington co-conspirators and the
even more clever idea of marketing it back into the US political bloodstream through British
intelligence channels by feeding it to the erratic and spiteful senator from Arizona whose
staff peddled it all over Washington and New York. There must be retribution for this.
The leftist press is already discounting the results of Mueller's investigation while
gloating over how long the Democratic held House of Representatives can continue to search
through Trump's life trying to find criminality.
AG Barr should stand Mueller up next to him at a press conference to make clear the results
of his report and to answer questions about it. After that the prosecutions should begin.
pl
I would be most interested if one of the legally competent members of this Committee –
Robert Willman perhaps? – could give us us an idea of what charges could be leveled
against Christopher Steele under U.S. law in relation to his clearly central role in this
conspiracy.
It also seems reasonably clear that he was not acting in isolation, and that there is a
strong 'prima facie' case that senior figures in the British 'intelligence community' –
notably Robert Hannigan and probably Sir Richard Dearlove – were involved, in which
case the complicity is likely to have gone very much further.
The argument that declassification of relevant documentation would harm the intelligence
relationship between the U.S. and U.K. has clearly been made with great emphasis from this
side.
In fact, it is pure bollocks. A serious investigation on your side, which could lead to
the kind of clean-out which should have happened when the scale of the corruption of
intelligence in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq became clear, might pave the way for us
to reconstruct reasonably functional intelligence services.
Doing this on both sides of the Atlantic might pave the way for a reconstruction of an
intelligence relationship which was actually beneficial to both countries, as in recent years
it patently has not been.
Whether there is a realistic prospect of people on your side opening the cans of worms on
ours, as well as your own, of course remains a moot point.
I'm glad the Steele affair has been examined at the American end -
"They devised the clever, clever idea of creating the Steele Dossier in cahoots with
Washington co-conspirators and the even more clever of marketing it back into the US
political bloodstream through British intelligence channels, by feeding it to the erratic and
spiteful senator from Arizona whose staff peddled it all over Washington and New York.
"
What about the UK end? We're fussing over some little local difficulties in the UK at the
moment and at our end the questions still remain - Who in the UK authorised it and how high did it go?
The problem with criminal prosecution is one must cite a Brit or US law which was violated.
The only ones in US law that I am aware of stipulate that the plotting must be by means of
violence, "by force". All this appears to me to be only the propagation of rumors.
I think it might be more the investigation of the propagation of rumours. Think back to that election campaign, and to the period before the inauguration.
Both sides were furiously engaged in throwing mud at each other. Situation normal. Then an
odd thing happens. A particularly foolish piece of mud comes along. All that Golden Showers
nonsense. Regard that as normal if we please. I expect worse comes along sometimes. Then it
turns out that that piece of mud comes from an Intelligence source. Situation no longer normal.
With respect it is not propagating rumours to ask how that happened. As for my own
interest in the affair, it is not propagating rumours to ask how a senior UK ex-Intelligence
Officer comes to be mixed up in it all. I suppose I started to look on it as rather more than a prank or a few cogs slipping when
that senior UK ex-Intelligence Officer got whisked away to a safe house. We're a penny
pinching lot over here and we don't run to that sort of thing for nothing.
An investigation could certainly be predicated on the reasonable suspicion that Steele, et
al, conspired to defraud the United States, in this case a purposeful and knowing smear of a
candidate for office; also, another potential violation could be lying to the FBI, T 18 USC
1001.
The problem, as I see it, is sorting out the malignant from the merely incompetent. As I've
argued many times, the dossier should have been dismissed from the outset as a pile of
garbage, empty of actionable content, because the ultimate sources could not be vetted: the
information could not be said to be either credible or reliable. The information was acted on
by screening it behind the reliabilty and credibility, so called, of Steele. So it would be
necessary to show that Steele knew that the information, point by point, was false. This
could be difficult. Steele's first line of defense would be that he threw everything that he
heard from anyone at all into the mix in the expectation that the "professionals" would
figure it out.
Yes, they were all partisan, Steele, his sources, his bosses, the so called
professionals, and their partisanship would be easy to prove; and yes, almost assuredly their
partisanship contributed, perhaps even explained, their defective judgement as to how to
handle the scurrilous information, especially on the part of the so called professionals, but
proving they actually knew the materials to be false would be difficult.
They couldn't know
that it was false because they had no ability to run down the sources. The professionals
would defend themselves by saying they had no ability to vet the sources but the information
represented such a serious security threat that they had no alternative but to try to vet the
information by launching the investigation against the targets. This puts the cart before the
horse, represents an astonishing lack of judgement, especially considering the "exalted"
positions in the Intel Community the people exercising the bad judgement occupied, but there
it is - "we thought we were doing the right thing."
Perhaps this defense could be overcome by
demonstrating that people at such high and important heights of government could not possible
be so stupid... maybe.
And of course we have the orchestrated leaks to various media, the orchestrated unmaskings,
all of which kept the media frenzy fired up. All in all, it was the greatest political dirty
trick ever attempted in American Politics, and did devastating damage to both domestic
tranquility and national security. Trump survived, but the damage done is incalculable.
So It pains me greatly to think that the reckoning will likely have to be political rather
than criminal because the malice that can be demonstrated is so admixed and even overshadowed
by incompetence and judgement flaws; and even a political reckoning given the state of the
country is so uncertain.
I hope that I am wrong and that some kind of prosecution can be fashioned because of the
sheer enormity of violence that was done to our electoral system, surpassing by far the
chickenshit case Mueller brought against the Russian troll farm; but I fear that I am right.
It hurts to think that so much damage can be caused by scheming little political weasels and
that they all may well walk away scot free; and even be lionized by their political confreres
as having tried to do the right thing. This is the state of American politics today!!!
I see that some of the midgets on horseback are saying that they will bring Mueller before
congress to explain himself. Their knight in shining armor has failed to return with the holy
grail. A couple even suggested that perhaps Mueller has been influenced by the Russians or
somehow intimated by Trump.
The coup may be over, but the witch hunt will continue;
and that
+ all the crazy Marxism (social and economic), bad immigration policy and Green New Deal is
going to doom the Democrats in 2020. They look like they are jumping off a final sake fueled
banzai charge. Maybe they think the best defense is a good offense re; the prosecutions that
should happen. What is the chance that Mueller will pass *all* he has learned to help get the
criminal cases under way?
On 13 July 2018, when announcing the indictment of 12 Russian military officers by the
Mueller group for "conspiring to interfere" in the 2016 presidential election, Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein admitted that no "interference" actually happened. In this
video of his announcement, starting at 5 minutes, 52 seconds into it and ending at the 6
minute, 5 second mark, he says--
"There is no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime.
There is no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election
result."
Col. Lang is absolutely correct that those involved in attempting to reverse the results
of the 2016 election, de-legitimize an elected president, and remove him should be thoroughly
pursued through all avenues and procedures of the civil and criminal law.
However, I am concerned that the new attorney general, William Barr, will not do so based
on his past associations and work. I hope I am wrong about that, but I am not optimistic.
It's a dirty business. If half this stuff is true, and not just layers of increasingly
unbelievable cover stories (I mean, a tangential example, is the whole Skripal thing a
weirdly, too obviously fake cover show for what was in reality a "witness protection"
operation? A witness who could and would reveal much? On this matter even, perhaps. Such
obvious deceptions are harmful to respect for authority and the law.)
I'm wrestling with the idea that 'twas ever thus and now with the internet its workings
are revealed to a "lay" audience with no connection to the dark arts of the spy business. But
I am curious, with the good Colonel's indulgence, if the new tools of the trade have made
things which should be secret not possible to be kept secret?
Amen to the prosecutions. If there is seen to be no accountability for this fraud then we are
seriously damaging what's left of democracy. Who, in their right mind, is going to publicly
support and assist a political candidate who is not "Swamp approved" if they face the threat
of thereby triggering their own, and their family's destruction by the judicial system?
I suggest that even a pardon is not enough for those entrapped in this mess. There needs
to be restitution.
To put that another way, in my opinion, "birther" allegations could be passed off as
political tactics. Nobody got hurt. It is just good luck that Russiagate hasn't resulted in
suicide or worse - so far.
I certainly agree that consequences must be brought to bear: lying politicians without a
shred of evidence, nor did they offer any for their lies; press for their utter and complete
malfeasance and corruption without a shred of evidence, the doj/fbi corrupted and coup
plotting officials,and finally the shame to all who shrieked about "evil" putin, russia the
aggressor, etc. It has set our discourse back decades, forced any critics of this insanity
into the shadows, and completely killed any attempt at normal diplomacy between nations.
I noted one astute writer as equating this russiagate insanity to the lies surrounding wmd
and the destruction of iraq. Close. The damage from this criminality is incalculable!
Will the shrillest of all in the press lose their jobs? Nah, not a chance. Prob get raise
or promotion.Will the brennans, clintons, clappers, et al do the perp walk. Nah, not a
chance. High paid lawyers will tie the courts up for years if not decades.
And america has the institutional memory of a gnat. And of course, the question is as to
high up did this criminality go? I personally do not believe it is a question-it is obvious
to me. The major question for me is how high up the prosecution, if any, will go.
Problem is...who's going to do the prosecuting?
The DOJ - protector of the swamp - has become thoroughly corrupted as an arm of the
Democrat-media party.
Should (can) Trump appoint a special prosecutor as far as possible from the DOJ?
The president might use this and any Republican-led prosecutions as leverage to work out
deals that will allow him to achieve his agenda. I think he'll need to given how the
Democrats intend to use their house majority to launch investigations and hearings to find
something, anything to howl about and impede his agenda.
Still need to see the full report. I hope it is releasable. Otherwise the conspiracy theories
or leaks will never let up. The article cited is a partisan opinion piece, not a news report.
It accepts the fallback stance that yes, crimes were committed but collusion by Trump was not
among them. This actually seems possible if only in light of the chaotic condition of the
campaign.
That said, I would not be surprised to find collusion discounted. Not that the Russians
didn't interfere. That would be entirely in character. But I don't know any reason for
supposing that they would have a better understanding of American political dynamics than the
Americans who make good livings being the best in that arena. The Russians seem to have been
doing the same things as numerous other players. They shouldn't have been in that game, but
there is no strong reason for according them Superman status. Their strongest feature seems
to have been sheer quantity. Outrage over their actions often seems to flow from a poor grasp
of the real nature of normal political process.
"The Russians seem to have been doing the same things..."
Multiple members of the FBI and DOJ seem to have been interfering in the 2016 Presidential
election. How many other federal and state elections did they interfere with?
Can you cite a single piece of hard evidence, not simply allegation, that proves the Russians
interfered in the 2016 election? If so, please cite it, since I know of none. Thank you.
"... Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump president ..."
"... The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives, getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of amounts to an attempted soft coup. ..."
"... It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. ..."
"... As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary, they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry. Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch ..."
"... I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way. ..."
"... Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller to prove. ..."
"... It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the "national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon. ..."
"... It is time to build cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony. Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it. The truth will work better. ..."
Back in November of 2016, the American people were so fed up with the neoliberal oligarchy
that everyone knows really runs the country that they actually elected Donald Trump
president. They did this fully aware that Trump was a repulsive, narcissistic ass clown who
bragged about "grabbing women by the pussy" and jabbered about building "a big, beautiful
wall" and making the Mexican government pay for it. They did this fully aware of the fact
that Donald Trump had zero experience in any political office whatsoever, was a loudmouth
bigot, and was possibly out of his gourd on amphetamines half the time. The American people
did not care. They were so disgusted with being conned by arrogant, two-faced, establishment
stooges like the Clintons, the Bushes, and Barack Obama that they chose to put Donald Trump
in office, because, fuck it, what did they have to lose?
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years, and appointing a special prosecutor to
conduct an official investigation in order to lend it the appearance of legitimacy. Every
component of the ruling establishment (i.e., the government, the media, the intelligence
agencies, the liberal intelligentsia, et al.) collaborated in an unprecedented effort to
remove an American president from office based on a bunch of made-up horseshit which kind of
amounts to an attempted soft coup.
It now appears that the world will see that the so-called "Russia Gate" investigation was
nothing more than the pro-Clintonista BS that Trump always claimed it was. The Clintons once
again, both Bill and Hillary, have managed to raise a vicious, loud mouthed thug in the White
House to the status of some kind of martyr. What a country America it is. One thing should be
clear however. Any politician or media pundit that towed the pro-Clintonista line should be
barred from public office or the media forever.
As for the Clintons, both Bill and Hillary,
they should be treated like the creeps they are: corrupt, opportunistic and power hungry.
Like Typhoid Mary, they infect everything they touch. There is one difference between Typhoid
Mary, and Bill and Hillary: Typhoid Mary didn't realize what she was doing, the Clintons did!
sorry to double post, but it just occurred to me that they pulled a classic DC move: if you
have something humiliating or horrible to admit, do it on a friday night.
i have to wonder if the entire western media is cynically praying for a (coincidentally
distracting) school shooting or terrorist attack within the next two days.
I have close friends that have been on the MSNBC/Maddow Kool-Ade for years. Constantly
declaring Mueller was on the verge of closing in on Trump and associates for treason with the
Russians. On Friday night after dinner at our home, the TV was tuned to MSNBC so they could
watch their spiritual leader Rachel Maddow....what a pitiful sight (both Maddow and friends).
No one was going to jail or be impeached for conspiring with Putin.....how on how could that
be true. Putin personally stole the election from Clinton and THEY are just going to let him
walk was the declaration a few feet from my chair. Normally, I would recommend grieve
counseling, but they are still my friends ... now they can go back to blaming Bernie for
Clinton's loss. Maybe I will recommend grieve counseling!
DontBelieveEitherPropaganda , Mar 23, 2019 2:27:18 PM |
link
@dltravers: Apart from the "goyim" you may be right.. But if you want to claim with that
Trumps opponents where under the pressure of the Zionists, you got it all wrong man.. ;) No
presidents been more under the Zionist thumb than DJT.
That ofc doesnt make Hillarys Saudi and Muslim brotherhood connections better.. ;)
Anyway, cheers to the end of this BS! And lets hope that Trump has now payed off his debts
with Adelson now that he secured Bibis reelection. But dont hold your breath.. ;)
"very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit and everyone who swallowed this
moronic load of bull spunk has officially discredited themselves for life".
I wish so, but that's not how the exceptional nation of US of A works, as demonstrated by
the Iraq WMD fiasco case. In fact, very politician, every media figure, every Twitter pundit
(about Saddam's WMD" BS) is alive and well, spreading more BS. What is even more depressing
is that the huge chunk of this exceptional nation cannot have enough of the BS and is
chanting "give me more, give me more...".
The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion.
However some good things have come out of the investigation. It cost taxpayers 2 million
but recouped over 25 million from those convicted of fraud and tax evasion.
And its not over, Mueller has sent 5 to 7 referrals or evidence/witnesses to SDNY, EDNY, DC,
EDVA, plus the National Security and Criminal Divisions. These from information turned up
crimes unrelated to his Russia probe and allegedly concerning Trump or his family business, a
cadre of his advisers and associates. They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles
to Brooklyn.
The bad news is it exposed how wide spread and corrupt the US has become...in private and
political circles.
The other bad news is most of the Trump lovers and Trump haters are too stupid to drop
their partisan and personal blinders and recognize that ....ITS THE CORRUPTION STUPID.
b you have repeatedly made the case that this whole thing was kicked off by the Steele
dossier. That is factually incorrect. The first investigation was already running before the
dossier ever materialized. That investigation spawned the special prosecutors investigation
when Trump fired Comey and then went on TV and said it was because of the Russia
investigation. The Russia investigation was originally kicked off by Papadopoulos drinking
with the the Australian ambassador and bragging about what the campaign was doing with
Russia. Remember the original evidence was presented to the leadership of both the House and
the Senate when they were both controlled by the Republican party and every one that was
briefed came out on camera and said the Justice dept was doing the right thing in pursuing
this.
I think the Democrats should lose Hillary down a deep hole and not let her near any of the
coming campaign events. But this came about because of the actions of the people around
Trump. Not because Hillary controls the US government from some secret bunker some where.
One could argue Russiagate was on the contrary quite a success. The Elites behind the scheme
never believed it would end up with Trump's impeachment. What they did accomplish though is a
deflection via "Fake News" from the Dem's election failures & shenanigans and refocus the
attention towards the DNC's emerging pedophilia scandals (Weiner, the Podesta's, Alefantis,
etc) & suspicious deaths (Seth Rich, etc) towards a dead-end with the added corollary of
preventing US/Ru rapprochement for more then half an administration..
Blooming Barricade , Mar 23, 2019 3:10:02 PM |
link
The deeply tragic thing about this for the media, the neocons, and the liberals is that they
brought it upon themselves by moving the goalposts continuously. If, after Hillary lost, they
had stuck to the "Russia hacked WikiLeaks" lie, then they probably have sufficient proof from
their perspective and the perspective of most of the public that Russia helped Trump win. In
this case it would be remembered by the Democrats like the stolen election of 2000 (albeit
the fact that it was a lie this time). They had multiple opportunities to jump off this
train. Even the ridiculous DNI report could have been their final play: "Russia helped
Trump." Instead of going with 2000 they went with 2001, aka 9-11, with the same neocon
fearmongers playing the pipe organ of lies. As soon as they accepted the Steele Dossier,
moving the focus to "collusion" they discredited themselves forever. Many of the lead
proponents were discredited Iraq war hawks. Except this time it was actually worse because
the whole media bought into it. This leaves an interesting conundrum: there were at least
some pro-Afghanistan anti-Iraq warmongers who rejected the Bush premise in the media, so they
took over the airwaves for about two years before the real swamp creatures returned. This
time, it will be harder to issue a mea culpa. They made this appear like 9-11, well, this
time the truthers have won, and they are doomed.
Societies collapse when their systems (institutions) become compromised. When they are no
longer capable of meeting the needs of the population, or of adapting to a changing world.
Societal systems become compromised when their decision making structures, which are
designed to ensure that decisions are taken in the best interest of the society as a whole,
are captured by people who have no legitimacy to make the decisions, and who make decisions
for the benefit of themselves, at the expense of society as a whole.
Russia-gate is a flagrant example of how the law enforcement and intelligence institutions
have been captured. Their top officials, no longer loyal to their country or their
institution, but rather to an international elite (including the likes of Soros, the
Clintons, and far beyond) have used these institutions in an attempt to delegitimize a
constitutionally elected president and to over turn an election. This is no less than treason
of the highest order.
Indeed, the actions much of the Washington establishment, as well as a number
international actors, since Trump was elected seems suspiciously like one of the 'Color
Revolutions' that are visited upon any country who's citizens did not 'vote right' the first
time. Over-throw the vote, one way or another, until the result that is wanted is achieved.
None of these 'Color Revolutions' has resulted in anything good for the country involved.
Rather they have resulted in the destruction of each country's institutions, and eventually
societal collapse.
In the U.S. the capturing of systems' decision making structures is not limited to
Russia-Gate and the overturning of the electoral system. Their are other prime examples:
- The capture of the Air Transport Safety System by Boeing that has resulted in the recent
737 Max crashes, and likely the destruction of the reputation of the U.S. aviation industry,
in an industry where reputation is everything.
- The capture of the Financial Regulatory System, by Wall Street, who in 1998 rewrote the
rules in their own favor, against the best interests of the population as a whole. The result
was the 2008 financial crisis and the inability of the U.S. economy to effectively recover
from that crisis.
- This capture is also seen in international diplomatic systems, where the U.S. is
systematically by-passing or subverting international law and international institutions,
(the U.N. I.C.J., I.N.F. treaty) etc., and in doing so is destroying these institutions and
the ability to maintain peace.
The result of system (institution) capture is difficult to see at first. But, in time, the
damage adds up, the ability of the systems to meet the needs of the population disappears,
and societal decline sets in.
It looks today like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of
many indicators.
Your comment on the BBC is on the mild side. I listen to it when I drive in in the morning
and also get annoyed sometimes. When it is reporting on the Westminster bubble it is
factually accurate as far as I can judge. Apart from that, and particularly in the case of
the BBC news, we're in information control territory.
But accept that and the BBC turns into quite a valuable resource. It's well staffed, has
good contacts, and picks up what the politicians want us to think with great accuracy.
In that respect it's better than the newspapers and better also than the American media.
Those news outlets have several masters of which the political elite is only one. The BBC has
just the one master, the political elite, and is as sensitive as a stethoscope to the
shifting currents within that political elite.
So I wouldn't despise the BBC entirely. It tells us how the politicians want us to think.
In telling us that it sometimes gives us a bearing on what the politicians et al are doing
and what they intend to do.
The never-Trumpers will never let their dreams die. Of course, they never oppose Trump on
substantive issues like attempting a coup in Venezuela, withdrawing from the INF treaty,
supporting the nazis in Ukraine, supporting Al Qaeda forces in Syria, etc. But somehow
they're totally against him and ready to haul out the latest stupid thing he said as their
daily fodder for conversation...
renfro @ 10 said;"The Dems were stupid to gin up the Russian collusion."
Uh no, just doing their job of distracting the public, while ignoring the real issues
the
American workers care about. You know, the things DJT promised the workers, but has never
delivered.(better health care for all, ending the useless wars overseas, an
infrastructure
plan to increase good paying jobs), to name just a few.
The corporate Dems( which is the lions share of them), are bought and paid for to
distract, and they've done it well.
The Bushes, the Clintons, the Obamas, and most who have come before, are of the same
ilk.
Bend over workers and lube up, for more of the same in 2020...
I profoundly disagree with the notion that Russiagate had anything to do with Hillary's
collusion with the DNC. Gosh, that is naive at best.
1) Hillary didn't need to collude against Sanders - the additional money that she got from
doing so was small change compared the to overall amount she raised for her campaign.
2) Sanders was a long-time friend of the Clintons. He boasted that he's known Hillary
for over 25 years.
3) Sanders was a sheepdog meant to keep progressives in the Democratic Party. He was
never a real candidate. He refused to attack Hillary on character issues and remained loyal
even after Hillary-DNC collusion was revealed.
When Sanders had a chance to total disgrace Hillary, he refused to do so. Hillary
repeatedly said that she had NEVER changed for vote for money but Warren had proven that
she had: Hillary changed her vote on the Bankruptcy Bill for money from the credit card
industry.
4) Hillary didn't try to bury her collusion with the DNC (as might be expected), instead
she used it to alienate progressive voters by bring Debra Wasserman-Shultz into her
campaign.
5) Hillary also alienated or ignored other important constituencies: she wouldn't
support an increase in the minimum wage but accepted $750,000 from Goldman Sachs for a
speech; she took the black vote for granted and all-but berated a Black Lives Matters
activist; and she called whites "deplorables".
Hillary threw the race to her OTHER long-time friend in the race: Trump. The
Deep-State wanted a nationalist and that's just what they got.
6) Hillary and the DNC has shown NO REMORSE whatsoever about colluding with Sanders and
Sanders has shown no desire whatsoever to hold them accountable.
IMO Russiagate (Russian influence on Trump) and accusations of "Russian meddling" in the
election are part of the same McCarthyist psyop to direct hate at Russia and stamp out any
dissent. Trump probably knowingly, played into the Deep State's psyop by:
> hiring Manafort;
> calling on Russia to release Hillary's emails;
> talking about Putin in a admiring way.
And it accomplished much more than hating on Russia:
> served as excuse for Trump to do Deep State bidding;
> distracted from the real meddling in the 2016 election;
> served as a device for settling scores:
- Assange isolated
(Wikileaks was termed an "agent of a foreign power");
- Michael Flynn forced to resign
(because he spoke to the Russian ambassador).
hopehely , Mar 23, 2019 3:49:15 PM |
link The US owes Russia an official apology. And also Russia should get its stolen
buildings and the consulate back. And maybe to get paid some compensation for the injustice
and for damages suffered. Without that, the Russiagate is not really over.
If memory serves me correctly, the initial accusations of collusion between DJT's
presidential campaign and the Kremlin came from Crowdstrike, the cybersecurity company hired
by the Democratic National Committee to oversee the security of its computers and databases.
This was done to deflect attention away from Hillary Clinton's illegal use of a personal
server at home to conduct government business during her time as US State Secretary (2009 -
2013), business which among other things included plotting with the US embassy in Libya (and
the then US ambassador Chris Stevens) to overthrow Muammar Gaddhafi's government in 2011, and
conspiring also to overthrow the elected government in Honduras in 2010.
The business of Christopher Steele's dossier (part or even most of which could have been
written by Sergei Skripal, depending on who you read) and George Papadopoulos' conversation
with the half-wit Australian "diplomat" Alexander Downer in London were brought in to bolster
the Russiagate claims and make them look genuine.
As B says, Crowdstrike does indeed have a Ukrainian nationalist agenda: its founder and
head Dmitri Alperovich is a Senior Fellow at The Atlantic Council (the folks who fund
Bellingcat's crapaganda) and which itself receives donations from Ukrainian oligarch Viktor
Pinchuk. Crowdstrike has some association with one of the Chalupa sisters (Alexandra or
Andrea - I can't be bothered dredging through DuckDuckGo to check which - but one of them was
employed by the DNC) who donated money to the Maidan campaign that overthrew Viktor
Yanukovych's government in Kiev in February 2014.
thanks b... i would like russiagate to be finished, but i tend to see it much like kadath
@2.. the link @2 is worth the read as a reminder of how far the usa has sunk in being a
nation of passive neocons... emptywheel can't say no to this as witnessed by her article
from today.. ) as a consequence, i agree with @14 dh-mtl's conclusion - "It looks today
like the the societal decline is acellerating. Russia-gate is just one of many indicators."
the irony for those of us who don't live in the usa, is we are going to have watch this
sad state of affairs continue to unravel, as the usa and the west continue to unravel in
tandem.. the msm as corporate mouthpiece is not going to be tell us anything of relevance..
instead it will be continued madcow, or maddow bullshit 24-7... amd as kadath notes @2 - if
any of them are to step up as a truth teller - they will be marginalized or silenced... so
long as the mainstream swallow what they are fed in the msm, the direction of the titanic is
still on track...
@19 hopehely... you can forget about anything like that happening..
What Difference Does it Make?
They don't really need Russia-gate anymore. It bought them time. As we speak nuclear bombers
make runs near Russian borders every day and Russian consulates get attacked with heavy
weaponry in the EU and no Russian outlet is even making a reference,while Israel is ready to
move heavy artillery in to Golan targeting Russia bases in Syria and China raking all their
deals for civilian projects in the Med.
Russia got stuffed in the corner getting all the punches.
What a horrible witch hunt, but the msm will keep on denying and keep creating new hoaxes
about Trump, Russia.
Heck the media even deny there was no collussion, they keep spinning it in different ways!
Thanks for citing Caitlin Johnstone's wonderful epitaph, b--Russiavape indeed!
During the fiasco, the Outlaw US Empire provided excellent proof to the world that it does
everything it accused Russia of doing and more, while Russia's cred has greatly risen.
Meanwhile, there're numerous other crimes Trump, his associates, Clinton, her
associates--like Pelosi--ought to be impeached, removed from office, arrested, then tried in
court, which is diametrically opposed to the current--false--narrative.
Scotch Bingeington , Mar 23, 2019 4:47:39 PM |
link
The people who steered us into two years of Russiavape insanity are the very last people
anyone should ever listen to ever again when determining the future direction of our world.
Yes, absolutely. And not just regarding the world's future, but even if you happen to be
in the same building with one of them and he/she bursts into your already smoke-filled room
yelling that the house is on fire.
Btw, whatever authority has ever ruled that "ex-MI6 dude" Steele (who doesn't remind me of
steel at all, but rather of a certain nondescript entity named Anthony Blair) is in fact
merely 'EX'? He himself? The organisation? The Queen perhaps?
Expose them at every opportunity, they should not get away with this like nothing
happend:
If you think a single Russiagate conspiracist is going to be held accountable for media
malpractice, you clearly haven't been awake the past 2 decades. No one will pay for being
wrong. This profession is as corrupt & rotten as the kleptocracy it serves
defeatism isn't the answer -- should remind & mock these hacks every opportunity.
Just need to be aware of the beast we're up against.
The establishment plays on peoples fears and so we all sink together as we all cling to
our "lesser evils", tribal allegiances, and try to avoid the embarrassment of being
wrong.
Although everyone is aware of the corruption and insider dealing, no one seems to want to
acknowledge the extent, or to think critically so as to reveal any more than we already
know.
It's almost as though corruption (the King's nudity) is a national treasure and revealing
it would be a national security breach in the exceptional nation.
And so to the Deep State cabal continues to rule unimpeded.
The oligarchy that runs the country responded to the American people's decision by
inventing a completely cock-and-bull story about Donald Trump being a Russian agent who the
American people were tricked into voting for by nefarious Russian mind-control operatives,
getting every organ of the liberal corporate media to disseminate and relentlessly promote
this story on a daily basis for nearly three years
Posted by: Ken | Mar 23, 2019 2:09:31 PM | 4
You people don't get it do you?
'The Plan' was to get rid of Turkey-Russia-Israel (and a few others) with one fell
swoop....
Russia gate was both a diversion from the real collusions (Russian Mafia , China and Israel)
and a clever ruse to allow Trump to back off from his campaign promise to improve relations
with Russia. US policy toward Russia is no different under Trump than it was during Obamas
administration. Exactly what the Russia Gaters wanted and Trump delivered.
That Mueller could find nothing more than some tax/money laundering/perjury charges in
which the culprits in the end get pardoned is hardly surprising given his history. Want
something covered up? Put Mueller on it.
To show how afraid Trump was of Mueller he appointed his long term friend Barr as AJ and
pretended he didn't know how close they were when it came out. There is no lie people wont
believe. Lol
Meanwhile Trumps Russian Mafia connections stay under the radar in MSM, Trump continues as
Bibi's sock puppet, the fake trade war with China continues as Ivanka is rolling in China
trademarks .
The Rothschild puppet that bailed out Trumps casinos as Commerce Secretary overseeing
negotiations that will open the doors for more US and EU (they willy piggy back on the deal
like hyenas) jobs to go to China (this time in financial/services) and stronger IPR
protections that will facilitate this transfer, and will provide companies more profits in
which to buyback stocks but wont bring manufacturing jobs back.
The collusion story has been hit badly and it will likely lose its momentum, but I wonder how
far reaching this loss of momentum is. There are many variants. The 'unwitting accomplice' is
an oxymoron which isn't finished yet. The Russians hacking the election: not over. The
Russians sowing discord and division. Not over. Credibility of the Russiagate champions
overall? Not clear. Some could take a serious hit. Brennan and other insiders who made it
onto cable tv?
It is possible that the whole groupthink about Russiagate changes drastically
and that 'the other claims' also lose their credibility but it's far from certain. After
years of building up tension Russia's policies are also changing. I think they have shown
restraint but their paranoia and aggressiveness is also increasing and some claims will
become true after all.
"Russiagate" has always been a meaningless political fraud.
When folks like Hillary Clinton sign on to something and give it a great deal of weight,
you really do know you are talking about an empty bag of tricks. She is a psychopathic liar,
one with a great deal of blood on her hands.
My problem with this official result is that it may tend to give Trump a boost, new
credibility.
The trouble with Trump has never been Russia - something only blind ideologues and people
with the minds of children believe - it is that he is genuinely ignorant and genuinely
arrogant and loud-mouthed - an extremely dangerous combination.
And in trying to defend himself, this genuine coward has completely surrendered American
foreign policy to its most dangerous enemies, the Neocons.
Blaming Russiagate on Hillary is very easy for those who hate her or hope that Trump will
deliver on his faux populist fake-agenda.
No one wants to contemplate the possibility that Hillary and Trump, and the duopoly they
lead, fixed the election and planned Russiagate in advance.
It seems a bridge too far, even for the smart skeptics at MoA.
So funny.
Trump has proven himself to be a neocon. He broke his campaign promise to investigate
Hillary within DAYS of being elected. He has brought allies of his supposed enemies into his
Administration.
Yet every one turns from the possibility that the election was fixed. LOL.
The horrible possibility that our "democracy" is managed is too horrible to contemplate.
Lets just blame it all on Hillary.
Those who have been holding their breath for two years can finally exhale. I guess the fever
of hysteria will have to be attended a while longer. A malady of this kind does not easily
die out overnight. Those who have been taken in, and duped for so long, can not so easily
recover. The weight of so much cognitive dissonance presses down on them like a boulder. The
dust of the stampeded herd behind Russiagate is enough paralyze the will of those who have
succumbed.
As Joseph Conrad once wrote, "The ways of human progress are inscrutable."
Russiagate is a pendulum, it reached the dead point, it would hange in the air for a moment,
then it would start swinging right backwards at full speed crashign everything in the way!
It would be revealed, it was Russia who paid Muller to start that hysteria and stole money
from American tax-payers and make America an international laughing stock. "Putin benefited
from it", highly likely!
Muller's investigation is paid for with Manafort's seized cash and property and Manafort
has made Yanukovich king of Ukraine, so Manafort is Putin's agent, so Muller is working of
Putin's money, so it was Putin's collusion everything that Muller is doing! Highly
likely.
There is no "Liberal Media". Those whom claim to be Liberal and yet support the Warmonger
Democratic Party (Republican lite) are frauds. Liberalism does not condone war and it most
certainly does not support wars of aggression - especially those wars waged against
defenseless nations. Neither can liberalism support trade sanctions or the subjugation of
Palestinians in the Apartheid State of ISreal.
We must be very careful with the words we choose, in order to paint the correct
conjuncture and not to throw the bathtub with the baby inside.
It's one thing to say Bernie Sanders is not a revolutionary; it's another completely
different thing to say he was in cahoots with the Clintons.
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary. Not only he chose to do so, but he only didn't win
because the DNC threw all its weight against him.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist. He's an imperialist who believes the
spoils of the empire should be also used to build a Scandinavian-style Welfare State for the
American people only. A cynic would tell you this would make him a Nazi without the race
theme, but you have to keep in mind societies move in a dialectical patern, not a linear one:
if you preach for "democratic socialism", you're bringing the whole package, not only the
bits you want.
I believe the rise of Bernie Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it
exists. Americans are more aware of their own contradictions (more enlightened) now than
before he disputed those faithful primaries of 2016. And the most important ingredient for
that, in my opinion, was the fact he was crushed by both parties; that the "establishment"
acted in unison not to let him get near the WH. That was a didactic moment for the American
people (or a signficant part of it).
But I agree Russiagate went well beyond just covering the Clintons' dirt in the DNC.
It may have be born like that, but, if that was the case, the elites quickly realized it
had other, ampler practical uses. The main one, in my opinion, was to drive a wedge between
Trump's Clash of Civilizations's doctrine -- which perceives China as the main long term
enemy, and Russia as a natural ally of the West -- and the public opinon. The thing is most
of the American elite is far too dependent on China's productive chain; Russia is not, and
can be balkanized.
There is a funny video compilation of the TV talking heads predicting the end of Trump, new
bombshells, impeachment, etc., over the last two years.
Unfortunately, the same sort of compilation could be made of sane people predicting "this new
information means the end of Russiagate" over the same time period.
The truth is that the truth doesn't matter, only the propaganda, and it has not stopped, only
spun onto new hysteria.
As others have said, hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been
wrong all along. They have too much emotional investment in the grand conspiracy theory to
simply let it go. Rather, they will forever point to what they believe are genuine bits of
evidence and curse Mueller for not following the leads. And the Dems in the House of
Representatives will waste more time and resources on pointless investigations in an effort
to keep the public sufficiently distracted from more important matters, such as the endless
wars and coups that they support. A pox on all their houses, both Democrats and
Republicans.
"...hard core Russiagaters will likely not be convinced that they have been wrong all along."
Wrong about what? There seems to be "narrative" operative here that there are only two
positions on this matter: the "right" one and the "wrong" one and nothing else.
Ben's and other comments might make this a little bit superfluous but it's short.
A case of divide and conquer against the population
This time it was a fabricated scandal.
Continued control over "facts" and narratives, the opportunity for efficient misdirection
and distraction, stealing and wasting other people's time and effort, spurious disagreements,
wearing down relations.
The illusion of choice, (false) opposition, blinded "oversight", and mythical claims
concerning a civilian government (in the case of the US: "of, for, and by" or something like
that).
Who knew or knows is irrelevant as long as the show goes on. There's nothing to prove
anything significant about who if anyone may or may not be behind the curtain and thus on
towards the next big or small scandal we go because people will be dissatisfied and hungry
and ready to bite as hard as possible on some other bait for or against something.
Maybe "Russiagate" was impeccably engineered or maybe it organically outcompeted other
distractions on offer that would ultimately also waste enormous amounts of time and
effort.
Management by crisis
The scandals, crises, "Science says" games and rubbish, outrage narratives, and any other
manipulations attempt and perhaps succeed at controlling the US and the world through
spam.
Jonathan @39: Of course it was fixed. That's what the Electoral College is for.
Well, you can say the same think about money-as-speech , gerrymandering, voter
suppression, etc. Despite all these, Americans believe that their democracy works.
I contend that what we witnessed in 2016 was a SHOW. Like American wrestling. It was
(mostly) fake. The proper term for this is kayfabe .
My advice to the yanks mourning Russiagate: move to the UK. The sick Brits will keep the
Russia hating cult alive even after they spend a decade puking over Brexit.
Jackrabbit @18
So, you don't think HRC qualifies as a nationalist? She can't fake populist, but she can do
nationalist.
I also think she is much too ambitious to have intentionally thrown the election. It was her
turn dammit! Take a look at her behavior as First Lady if you think she's the kind of
personality that is content to wield power from behind the scenes.
They didn't fall for the Steele dossier. I recall that emptywheel had discredited the dossier
during the election as it was known to have been rejected by major media outlets leading up
to the election. I think they merely fell behind the others as the outgoing administration,
the Democrats, the CIA, and the media chose to use the dossier to 'blackmail' Trump.
The most important fruit of russiagate, from the view of the establishment of the hegemon, is
that America has now taken a giant step towards full bore censorship.
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's
that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him
and Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax
returns. Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the
press asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns). Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate,
meaningless astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like
open borders. These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the
Democrats and another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character
issues and to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other
examples: Bernie refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's
well known work to squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer
Flowers), and didn't talk about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make")
and her glee at the overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find
that even a little bit strange?
We must be very careful ... and not to throw the bathtub with the baby
inside.
Don't we already have plenty of evidence that there is no precious democratic baby in the
bath? What do you think the Yellow Vests are doing every weekend?
If Bernie Sanders really was a "friend" of the Clintons, then he wouldn't even have
disputed the primaries against Hillary.
Why not? Do you know him personally? Can you vouch for him?
Bernie referred to Hillary as "my friend" many times on the campaign trail. He told
Politico that he's known her for 25 years but they are not "best friends". That's Sander's
typical word judo. Like when he was asked about Zionism, his response: what's that?
The fact is, Bernie is friendly with all the top Democrats: Obama campaigned for him and
Schumer wouldn't allow funding for democratic candidates that opposed him.
Then there's other strangeness. Like Bernie's refusal to release his 2014 tax returns.
Bernie said his returns were "boring" but when his 2015 tax return was delayed the press
asked him to release his 2014 return (Hillary boasted that she had released 10 years of
returns) . Bernie refused.
Now, I agree he's not a revolutionary socialist.... I believe the rise of Bernie
Sanders had an overall positive impact in the world as it exists.
Really? LOL. Sanders REFUSED to lead a Movement for real change. That might've changed things
for the better Mi>- like the Yellow Vests are changing things for the better.
What have we seen from the Democratics since 2016? Bullshit like Russiagate, meaningless
astroturf activism around bathrooms and statues, and outlandish policies like open borders.
These things just irritate most Americans and will lead to more failure for the Democrats and
another 4 years for Trump.
Lastly, you said nothing about Bernie's refusal to attack Hillary on character issues and
to counter her assertion that she NEVER changed her vote for money. Other examples: Bernie
refused to discuss Hillary's home email server, never mentioned Hillary's well known work to
squash investigations of Bill Clinton for abusing women (Jennifer Flowers), and didn't talk
about other scandals like Benghazi ("What difference does it make") and her glee at the
overthrow of Quadaffi ("we came, we saw, we kicked his ass").
And what of Trump? He was the ONLY republican populist in a field of 19. Do you find that
even a little bit strange?
mourning dove @57: Exactly! It's the Electoral College that decides elections, not
voters.
Do you think Hillary didn't know that? She refused to campaign in the three mid-western
states that would've won her the electoral college. Each of the states were won by Trump by a
thin margin.
Gosh and Blimey!
Comment #56 in a thread about an utterly corrupt political system and no-one has mentioned
the pro-"Israel" Lobby?
Words fail me. So I'll use someone else's...
From Xymphora March 21, 2019.
"Truth or Trope?" (Sailer):
"Of the top 50 political donors to either party at the federal level in 2018, 52 percent
were Jewish and 48 percent were gentile. Individuals who identify as Jewish are usually
estimated to make up perhaps 2.2 percent of the population.
Of the $675 million given by the top 50 donors, 66 percent of the money came from Jews and 34
percent from gentiles.
Of the $297 million that GOP candidates and conservative causes received from the top 50
donors, 56 percent was from Jewish individuals.
Of the $361 million Democratic politicians and liberal causes received, 76 percent came from
Jewish givers.
So it turns out that Rep. Omar and Gov. LePage appear to have been correct, at least about
the biggest 2018 donors. But you can also see why Pelosi wanted Omar to just shut up about
it: 76 percent is a lot."
Next up another false flag operation. The thing is, it would have be non-trivial and
involving the harming of people to jolt the narrative back to that favoring the deep state.
And taking off the proverbial media table, that Mueller found no collusion. Yes, election in
2016 no collusion, but Putin was behind the latest horrific false flag, "oh look, Trump is
not confronting Putin"...
Not even getting into the "treason", "putin's c*ckholster", "what's the time on Moscow,
troll!" crap we've been subjected to for 3 years, please enjoy this mashup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUvfZj-Fm0.
I've said before that she's a terrible strategist and she ran a terrible campaign and she's
terribly out of touch. I think she expected a cake walk and was relying on Trump being so
distasteful to voters that they'd have no other option.
I think Trump legitimately won the election and I don't believe for a second that she won the
popular vote. There were so many problems with the election but since they were on the losing
side, nobody cares. In 2012 I didn't know anyone else who was voting for Jill Stein, way too
many people were still in love with Obama. She got .4% of the vote. In 2016 most of the
people I knew were voting for Jill Stein, she drew a large crowd from DemExit, but they say
she got .4% of the vote. Total bullshit. There was also ballot stuffing and lots of other
problems, but it still wasn't enough.
I'm also convinced that Trump and Clinton colluded, but that they did so in order to get her
elected. I don't think he really wanted the job. But still, Hillary can do nationalist, and
the designs of the Empire would have proceeded either way.
Trump is a crook who takes money wherever he can get it, from subcontractors foolish enough
to work for him to bankers dumb enough to believe his financial statements. No doubt he has
helped Russian crooks sanitize their booty, but that is apparently too difficult for Mueller
to prove.
It is not good news that this troglodyte was not indicted, but it is good news that
Russia was not found guilty of electing him. Russiagate is an existential issue for the
"national security" establishment and just another propaganda offensive designed to justify
the largely useless & destructive activities of the Pentagon.
It is time to build
cooperation not continue the stupidity of US unilateralism and pursuit of global hegemony.
Trump and his team have to be removed from office. Democrats don't need Russiagate to do it.
The truth will work better.
"... RussiaGate was never a sustainable narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there. ..."
"... And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now worthless. ..."
"... They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. ..."
"... The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time. Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion." ..."
"... It's clear that RussiaGate is a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. ..."
"... If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb. ..."
"... If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate. ..."
"... And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us. ..."
"... Hillary is the epitome of evil. ..."
"... I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch, Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice, Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. ..."
"... Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for becoming elected. ..."
"... Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because it was her turn to get elected". ..."
"... HIS NAME WAS SETH RICH ..."
"... It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be nobody to hold them responsible ..."
"... When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself. ..."
During most of the RussiaGate investigation against Donald Trump I kept saying that all
roads lead to Hillary Clinton.
Anyone with three working brain cells knew this, including
'Miss' Maddow, whose tears of disappointment are particularly delicious.
Robert Mueller's investigation was designed from the beginning to create something out of
nothing. It did this admirably.
It was so effective it paralyzed the country for more than two years, just like Europe has
been held hostage by Brexit. And all of this because, in the end, the elites I call The Davos
Crowd refused to accept that the people no longer believed their lies about the benefits of
their neoliberal, globalist agenda.
Hillary Clinton's ascension to the Presidency was to be their apotheosis along with the
Brexit vote. These were meant to lay to rest, once and for all time, the vaguely libertarian
notion that people should rule themselves and not be ruled by philosopher kings in some distant
land.
Hillary's failure was enormous. And the RussiaGate gambit to destroy Trump served a laundry
list of purposes to cover it:
Undermine his legitimacy before he even takes office.
Accuse him of what Hillary actually did: collude with Russians and Ukrainians to effect
the outcome of the election
Paralyze Trump on his foreign policy desires to scale back the Empire
Give aid and comfort to hurting progressives and radicalize them further undermining our
political system
Polarize the electorate over the false choice of Trump's guilt.
Paralyze the Dept. of Justice and Congress so that they would not uncover the massive
corruption in the intelligence agencies in the U.S. and the U.K.
Isolate Trump and take away every ally or potential ally he could have by turning them
against him through prosecutor overreach.
Hillary should have been thrown to the wolves after she failed. When you fail the people she
failed and cost them the money she cost them, you lose more than just your funding. What this
tells you is that Hillary has so much dirt on everyone involved, once this thing started
everyone went along with it lest she burn them down as well.
Burnin' Down da House
Hillary is the epitome of envy. Envy is the destructive sin of coveting someone else's life
so much they are obsessed with destroying it. It's the sin of Cain. She envies what Trump has,
the Presidency. And she was willing to tear it down to keep him from having it no matter how
much damage it would do. She's worse than the Joker from The Dark Knight.
Because while the Joker is unfathomable to someone with a conscience there's little stopping
us from excising him from the community completely., even though Batman refuses.
Hillary hates us for who we are and what we won't give her. And that animus drove her to
blackmail the world while putting on the face of its savior.
And that's what makes what comes next so obvious to me. RussiaGate was never a sustainable
narrative. It was ludicrous from the beginning. And now that it has ended with a whimper there
are a lot of angry, confused and scared people out there.
Mueller thought all he had to do was lean on corrupt people and threaten them with
everything. They would turn on Trump. He would resign in disgrace from the public outcry. It
didn't work. In the end Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen and Roger Stone all held their ground or
perjured themselves into the whole thing falling apart.
Andrew Weissman's resignation last month was your tell there was nothing. Mueller would
pursue this to the limit of his personal reputation and no further. Just like so many other
politicians.
Vote Your Pocketbook
With respect to Brexit I've been convinced that it would come down to reputations. Would the
British MP's vote against their own personal best interests to do the bidding of the EU? Would
Theresa May eventually realize her historical reputation would be destroyed if she caves to
Brussels and betrays Brexit in the end? Always bet on the fecklessness of politicians. They
will always act selfishly when put to the test. While leading RussiaGate, Mueller was always
headed here if he couldn't get someone to betray Trump.
And now his report is in. There are no new indictments. And by doing so he is saving his
reputation for the future. And that is your biggest tell that Hillary's blackmail is now
worthless.
They don't fear her anymore because RussiaGate outed her as the architect. Anything else she
has is irrelevant in the face of trying to oust a sitting president from power. The
progressives that were convinced of Trump's treason are bereft; their false hope stripped away
like standing in front of a sandblaster. They will be raw, angry and looking for blood after
they get over their denial.
Everyone else who was blackmailed into going along with this lunacy will begin cutting deals
to save their skins. The outrage over this will not end. Trump will be President when he stands
for re-election.
The Wolves Beckon
The Democrats do not have a chance against him as of right now. When he was caving on
everything back in December it looked like he was done. That there was enough meat on the
RussiaGate bones to make Nancy Pelosi brave. Then she backed off on impeachment talk.
Oops....
... ... ...
The Deep State and The Davos Crowd stand revealed and reviled. If they don't do something
dramatic then the anger from the rest of the country will also be palpable come election time.
Justice is not done simply by saying, "No evidence of collusion."
It's clear that RussiaGate is
a failure of monumental proportions. Heads will have to roll. But who will be willing to fall
on their sword at this point? Comey? No. McCabe? No. There is only one answer. And Obama's
people are still in place to protect him. I said last fall that " Hillary would
indict herself. " And I meant it. Eventually her blackmail and drive to burn it all down
led to this moment.
The circumstances are different than I expected back then, Trump didn't win the mid-terms.
But the end result was always the same. If there is no collusion, if RussiaGate is a scam, then
all roads lead back to Hillary as the sacrificial lamb.
Because the bigger project, the erection of a transnational superstate, is bigger than any
one person. Hillary is expendable. Lies are expensive to maintain. The truth is cheap to
defend. Think of the billions in opportunity costs associated with this. Once the costs rise
above the benefits, change happens fast. If there is any hope of salvaging the center of this
country for the Democrats, the ones that voted against Hillary in 2016, then there is no reason
anymore not to indict Hillary as the architect of RussiaGate.
We all know it's the truth. So, the cheapest way out of this mess for them is to give the
MAGApedes what they want, Hillary.
And hope that is enough bread and circuses to distract from the real storm ahead of us.
I don't think Hillary is enough. I want McCabe, Comey, Mueller, Rosenstein, Loretta Lynch,
Obama, Lois Lerner, Blasey Ford, Brennan, Clapper, Abedin, Weiner, Cheryl Mills, Susan Rice,
Strzok, Page, Sally Yates, all of the phony FISA cohort brought to justice. Think of the
taxpayer money wasted on this ridiculous Mueller investigation! The Roger Stone arrest was an
outrage. Who tipped off CNN? Who ordered it? What was with the attack dogs and machine guns?
And now we have Nadler trying to destroy anyone and everyone who ever did business with
Trump. All those 80 people who got letters from him asking for documents will now be
bankrupted by legal fees.
According to Scott Adams, one recipient is refusing to
cooperate -- he's saying "I can't afford for me and family to be destroyed." He put the request
for documents in a drawer. He has no money for lawyers.
This insanity and abuse of power has
got to stop. Meanwhile, nothing gets done in Congress. We're all looking at censorship,
tilted search engines, de-monetization, being beat up on campus for trying to express an
opinion, being accosted in a restaurant (or, VP Pence, from the stage ("Hamilton"), getting
sucker-punched for wearing a MAGA hat, having elections stolen through myriad Dem cheating
methods, and NOTHING is being done.
Her DNC cabal cooked in less than 24 hours from the election defeat a conspiracy of Russian
meddling and now, when more information became available, HCR is involved in two separate
cases of foreign collusion, The Steele dossier, with Russo-Anglo meddling and another a
Ukrainian one, which is now under investigation and the purpose was getting their help for
becoming elected.
Without a doubt the Russian collusion is the most serious one, because it deliberately
sabotaged diplomatic relations with Russia and lead into to a new cold war era. This also
raised substantially risks for a direct confrontation with catastrophic consequences. The
damage from these treacherous acts is huge and the felony bears pretty much all hallmarks of
treason. Se deliberately undermined her own nation´s interests and rather risked even a
war simply, because she is a psychopath, who refused to concede the defeat in due elections
and instead wanted to hide real reasons for her loss to any cost for everybody else, "because
it was her turn to get elected".
It is clear that from the beginning, fraudulent FISA warrants, that it was a case of
Obama's administration digging dirt on Trump believing that when Hillary wins there will be
nobody to hold them responsible.
When Hillary lost there was only one way out for them to
justify that kind of abuse, to find something, anything on Trump so they can say that they
were right. Worse than Watergate by orders of magnitude, involving FBI, DOJ and WH itself.
This month marks the 20th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO's 78-day air war against Yugoslavia. It was a war waged
as much against Serbian civilians – hundreds of whom perished – as it was against Slobodan Milošević's forces, and it was a campaign
of breathtaking hypocrisy and selective outrage. More than anything, it was a war that by President Bill Clinton's own admission
was fought for the sake of NATO's credibility.
One Man's Terrorist
Our story begins not in the war-torn Balkans of the 1990s but rather in the howling wilderness of Afghanistan at the end of the
1980s as defeated Soviet invaders withdrew from a decade of guerrilla warfare into the twilight of a once-mighty empire. The United
States, which had provided arms, funding and training for the mujahideen fighters who had so bravely resisted the Soviet occupation,
stopped supporting the jihadis as soon as the last Red Army units rolled across the Hairatan Bridge and back into the USSR. Afghanistan
descended deeper into civil war.
The popular narrative posits that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network, Washington's former mujahideen allies, turned on the
West after the US stationed hundreds of thousands of infidel troops in Saudi Arabia – home to two out of three of Sunni Islam's holiest
sites – during Operation Desert Shield in 1990. Since then, the story goes, the relationship between the jihadists and their former
benefactors has been one of enmity, characterized by sporadic terror attacks and fierce US retribution. The real story, however,
is something altogether different.
From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew
thousands of al-Qaeda mujahideen, often accompanied by US Special Forces, from Central Asia to Europe to reinforce Bosnian Muslims
as they fought Serbs to gain their independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The Clinton administration
armed and trained these fighters in
flagrant violation of United Nations accords; weapons purchased by Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Iran were secretly shipped to the jihadists
via Croatia, which netted a hefty profit from each transaction. The official Dutch inquiry into the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, in
which thousands of Bosniak (Bosnian Muslim) men and boys were slaughtered by Bosnian Serb and Serbian paramilitary forces, concluded
that the United States was "very closely involved" in these arms transfers.
When the Bosnian war ended in 1995 the United States was faced with the problem of thousands of Islamist warriors on European
soil. Many of them joined the burgeoning Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which mainly consisted of ethnic Albanian Kosovars from what
was still southwestern Yugoslavia. Emboldened by the success of the Slovenes, Croats, Macedonians and Bosnians who had won their
independence from Belgrade as Yugoslavia literally balkanized, KLA fighters began to violently expel as many non-Albanians from Kosovo
as they could. Roma, Jews, Turks and, above all, Serbs were all victims of Albanian ethnic cleansing.
The United States was initially very honest in its assessment of the KLA. Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy to Bosnia,
called it "without any question a terrorist
group." KLA backers allegedly included Osama bin Laden
and other Islamic radicals; the group largely bankrolled its activities by trafficking heroin and sex slaves. The State Department
accordingly added the KLA to its list of terrorist organizations in 1998.
However, despite all its nastiness the KLA endeared itself to Washington by fighting the defiant Yugoslavian President Slobodan
Milošević. By this time Yugoslavia, once composed of eight nominally autonomous republics, had been reduced by years of bloody civil
war to a rump of Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. To Serbs, the dominant ethnic group in what remained of the country, Kosovo is regarded
as the very birthplace of their nation. Belgrade wasn't about to let it go without a fight and everyone knew it, especially the Clinton
administration. Clinton's hypocrisy was immediately evident; when Chechnya fought for its independence from Moscow and Russian forces
committed horrific atrocities in response, the American president
called the war an internal Russian affair
and barely criticized Russian President Boris Yeltsin. But when Milošević resorted to brute force in an attempt to prevent Yugoslavia
from further fracturing, he soon found himself a marked man.
Although NATO
called
the KLA "the main initiator of the violence" in Kosovo and blasted "what appears to be a deliberate campaign of provocation" against
the Serbs, the Clinton administration was nevertheless determined to attack the Milošević regime. US intelligence confirmed that
the KLA was indeed provoking harsh retaliatory strikes by Serb forces in a bid to draw the United States and NATO into the conflict.
President Clinton, however, apparently wasn't listening. The NATO powers, led by the United States, issued Milošević an ultimatum
they knew he could never accept: allow NATO to occupy all of Kosovo and have free reign in Serbia as well. Assistant US Secretary
of State James Rubin later
admitted that "publicly we had to make clear we were seeking an agreement but privately we knew the chances of the Serbs agreeing
were quite small."
Wagging the Dog?
In 1997 the film Wag the Dog debuted to rave reviews. The dark comedy concerns a Washington, DC spin doctor and a Hollywood
producer who fabricate a fictional war in Albania to distract American voters from a presidential sex scandal. Many observers couldn't
help but draw parallels between the film and the real-life events of 1998-99, which included the Monica Lewinsky scandal, Clinton's
impeachment and a very real war brewing in the Balkans. As in Wag the Dog , there were exaggerated or completely fabricated
tales of atrocities, and as in the film the US and NATO powers tried to sell their war as a humanitarian intervention. An attack
on Yugoslavia, we were told, was needed to avert Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanians.
There were two main problems with this. First, there was no Serb ethnic cleansing of Albanian Kosovars until after NATO
began mercilessly bombing Yugoslavia. The German government
issued several reports confirming this. One, from October 1998, reads, in part:
The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no
proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions
and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) A
state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier.
Subsequent German government reports issued through the winter of 1999 tell a similar story. "Events since February and March
1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity," stated one report released exactly one month before the
NATO bombing started. "The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combating the KLA
and its supposed adherents and supporters."
While Serbs certainly did commit atrocities (especially after the ferocious NATO air campaign began), these were often greatly
exaggerated by the Clinton administration and the US corporate mainstream media. Clinton claimed – and the media dutifully parroted
– that 600,000 Albanians were "trapped within Kosovo lacking shelter, short of food, afraid to go home or buried in mass graves."
This was completely false . US diplomat David
Scheffer claimed that "225,000 ethnic Albanian men are missing, presumed dead." Again, a
total fabrication . The FBI, International War Crimes
Tribunal and global forensics experts flocked to Kosovo in droves after the NATO bombs stopped falling; the total number of victims
they found was around 1 percent of the figure claimed by the United States.
However, once NATO attacked, the Serb response was predictably furious. Shockingly, NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark declared
that the ensuing Serbian atrocities against the Albanian Kosovar population had been
"fully anticipated" and were apparently of little concern to Washington.
Not only did NATO and the KLA provoke a war with Yugoslavia, they did so knowing that many innocent civilians would be killed, maimed
or displaced by the certain and severe reprisals carried out by enraged Serb forces. Michael McGwire, a former top NATO planner,
acknowledged that "to describe the bombing as a humanitarian intervention is really grotesque."
Bloody Hypocrites
The other big problem with the US claiming it was attacking Yugoslavia on humanitarian grounds was that the Clinton administration
had recently allowed – and was at the time allowing – far worse humanitarian catastrophes to rage without American intervention.
More than 800,000 men, women and children were slaughtered while Clinton and other world leaders stood idly by during the 1994 Rwandan
genocide. The US also courted the medievally brutal
Taliban regime in hopes of achieving stability in Afghanistan and with an eye toward building a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through
Afghanistan to Pakistan. Clinton also did nothing to stop Russian forces from viciously crushing nationalist uprisings in the Caucuses,
where Chechen rebels were fighting for their independence much the same as Albanian Kosovars were fighting the Serbs.
Colombia, the Western Hemisphere's leading recipient of US military and economic aid, was waging a fierce, decades-long campaign
of terror against leftist insurgents and long-suffering indigenous peoples. Despite
horrific brutality and pervasive human rights violations, US aid to Bogotá increased year after year. In Turkey, not only did
Clinton do nothing to prevent government forces from committing widespread atrocities against Kurdish separatists, the administration
positively encouraged its NATO ally with billions of dollars in loans and arms sales. Saudi Arabia, home to the most repressive fundamentalist
regime this side of Afghanistan, was – and remains – a favored US ally despite having one of the
world's worst human rights
records. The list goes on and on.
Much closer to the conflict at hand, the United States tacitly approved the largest ethnic cleansing campaign in Europe since
the Holocaust when as many as 200,000 Serbs were
forcibly expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by that country's US-trained military during Operation Storm in August 1995.
Krajina Serbs had purged the region of its Croat minority four years earlier in their own ethnic cleansing campaign; now it was the
Serbs' turn to be on the receiving end of the horror. Croatian forces stormed through Krajina, shelling towns and slaughtering innocent
civilians. The sick and the elderly who couldn't escape were executed or burned alive in their homes as Croatian soldiers machine-gunned
convoys of fleeing refugees.
"Painful for the Serbs"
Washington's selective indignation at Serb crimes both real and imagined is utterly inexcusable when held up to the horrific and
seemingly indiscriminate atrocities committed during the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia. The prominent Australian journalist
John Pilger noted that "in the attack on Serbia, 2 percent of NATO's missiles hit military targets, the rest hit hospitals, schools,
factories, churches and broadcast studios." There is little doubt that US and allied warplanes and missiles were targeting the Serbian
people as much as, or even more than, Serb forces. The bombing knocked out electricity in 70 percent of the country as well as much
of its water supply.
NATO warplanes also deliberately bombed a building containing the headquarters of Serbian state television and radio in the middle
of densely populated central Belgrade. The April 23, 1999 attack occurred without warning while 200 employees were at work in the
building. Among the 16 people killed were a makeup artist, a cameraman, a program director, an editor and three security guards.
There is no doubt that the attack was meant to demoralize the Serbian people. There is also no doubt that those who ordered the bombing
knew exactly what outcome to expect: a NATO planning document viewed by Bill Clinton, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President
Jacques Chirac forecast as
many as 350 deaths in the event of such an attack, with as many as 250 of the victims expected to be innocent civilians living in
nearby apartments.
Allied commanders wanted to fight a "zero casualty war" in Yugoslavia. As in zero casualties for NATO forces, not the people they
were bombing. "This will be painful for the Serbs," Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon sadistically predicted. It sure was. NATO warplanes
flew sorties at 15,000 feet (4,500 meters), a safe height for the pilots. But this decreased accuracy and increased civilian casualties
on the ground. One attack on central Belgrade mistakenly
hit Dragiša Mišović hospital with a laser-guided "precision" bomb, obliterating an intensive care unit and destroying a children's
ward while wounding several pregnant women who had the misfortune of being in labor at the time of the attack. Dragana Krstić, age
23, was recovering from cancer surgery – she just had a 10-pound (4.5 kg) tumor removed from her stomach – when the bombs blew jagged
shards of glass into her neck and shoulders. "I don't know which hurts more," she lamented, "my stomach, my shoulder or my heart."
Dragiša Mišović wasn't the only hospital bombed by NATO. Cluster bombs dropped by fighter jets of the Royal Netherlands Air Force
struck a hospital and a market in the city of Niš on May 7,
killing 15 people and wounding 60 more. An emergency clinic
and medical dispensary were also bombed in the
mining town of Aleksinac on April 6, killing at least five people and wounding dozens more.
Bridges were favorite targets of NATO bombing. An international passenger train traveling from Belgrade to Thessaloniki, Greece
was
blown apart by two missiles as it crossed over Grdelica gorge on April 12. Children and a pregnant woman were among the 15 people
killed in the attack; 16 other passengers were wounded. Allied commander Gen. Wesley Clark claimed the train, which had been damaged
by the first missile, had been traveling too rapidly for the pilot to abort the second strike on the bridge. He then offered up a
doctored video that was sped up more than three times so that the pilot's behavior would appear acceptable.
On May 1, at least 24 civilians, many of them children, were killed when NATO warplanes
bombed a bridge in Lužane just as a bus was crossing.
An ambulance rushing to the scene of the carnage was struck by a second bomb. On the sunny spring afternoon of May 30, a bridge over
the Velika Morava River in the small town of Vavarin was
bombed by low-flying German Air Force F-16 fighters while hundreds of local residents gathered nearby to celebrate an Orthodox
Christian holiday. Eleven people died, most of them when the warplanes returned and bombed the people who rushed to the bridge to
help those wounded in the first strike.
No One Is Safe
The horrors suffered by the villagers of Surdulica shows that no one in Serbia was safe from NATO's fury. They endured some 175
bombardments during one three-week period alone, with 50 houses destroyed and 600 others damaged in a town with only around 10,000
residents. On April 27, 20 civilians, including 12 children,
died when bombs meant to
destroy an army barracks slammed into a residential neighborhood. As many as 100 others were wounded in the incident. Tragedy
befell the tiny town again on May 31 when NATO
warplanes returned to bomb an ammunition depot but instead hit an old people's home; 23 civilians, most of them helpless elderly
men and women, were blown to pieces. Dozens more were wounded. The US military initially said "there were no errant weapons" in the
attack. However, Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre later testified before Congress that it "was a case of the pilot getting confused."
The CIA was also apparently confused when it relied on what it claimed was an outdated map to approve a Stealth Bomber strike
on what turned out to be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. Three Chinese journalists were killed and 27 other people were wounded.
Some people aren't so sure the attack was an accident – Britain's Observer later
reported that the US deliberately bombed the
embassy after discovering it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.
There were plenty of other accidents, some of them horrifically tragic and others just downright bizarre. Two separate attacks
on the very Albanians NATO was claiming to help killed 160 people, many of them women and children. On April 14, NATO warplanes bombed
refugees along a 12-mile (19-km) stretch of road between the towns of Gjakova and Deçan in western Kosovo, killing 73 people including
16 children and wounding 36 more. Journalists reported
a grisly scene of "bodies charred or blown to pieces, tractors reduced to twisted wreckage and houses in ruins." Exactly one month
later, another column of refugees was
bombed near Koriša, killing
87 – mostly women, children and the elderly – and wounding 60 others. In the downright bizarre category, a wildly errant NATO missile
struck a residential neighborhood in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, some 40 miles (64 km) outside of Serbia. The American AGM-88 HARM
missile blew the roof off
of a man's house while he was shaving in his bathroom.
NATO's "Murderous Thugs"
As the people of Yugoslavia were being terrorized by NATO's air war, the terrorists of the Kosovo Liberation Army stepped up their
atrocities against Serbs and Roma in Kosovo. NATO troops deployed there to keep the peace often failed to protect these people from
the KLA's brutal campaign. More than 164,000 Serbs fled or
were forcibly driven from the Albanian-dominated province and by the summer of 2001 KLA ethnic cleansing had rendered Kosovo almost
entirely Albanian, with just a few die-hard Serb holdouts living in fear and surrounded by barbed wire.
The KLA soon expanded its war into neighboring Macedonia. Although NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson called the terror group
"murderous thugs," the United States – now with George W. Bush as president – continued to offer its invaluable support. National
Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice personally
intervened in an attempt to persuade Ukraine to halt arms sales to the Macedonian army and when a group of 400 KLA fighters were
surrounded at Aracinovo in June 2001, NATO ordered Macedonian forces to hold off their attack while a convoy of US Army vehicles
rescued the besieged militants. It later
emerged that 17 American military advisers were embedded with the KLA at Aracinovo.
Credibility Conundrum
The bombing of Yugoslavia was really about preserving the credibility of the United States and NATO. The alliance's saber rattling
toward Belgrade had painted it into a corner from which the only way out was with guns blazing. Failure to follow threats with deadly
action, said President Clinton, "would discredit NATO." Clinton
added
that "our mission is clear, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's purpose." The president seemed willfully ignorant of NATO's
real purpose, which is to defend member states from outside attack. British Prime Minister Tony Blair agreed with Clinton,
declaring on the eve of the war that
"to walk away now would destroy NATO's credibility." Gary Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute,
wrote that the Clinton administration
"transformed a conflict that posed no threat to the territorial integrity, national sovereignty or general welfare of the United
States into a major test of American resolve."
Waging or prolonging war for credibility's sake is always dangerous and seems always to yield disastrous results. Tens of thousands
of US troops and many times as many Vietnamese, Laotian and Cambodian soldiers and civilians died while Richard Nixon sought an "honorable"
way out of Vietnam. Ronald Reagan's dogged defense of US credibility cost the lives of 299 American and French troops killed in Hezbollah's
1983 Beirut barracks bombing. This time, ensuring American credibility meant backing the vicious KLA – some of whose fighters had
trained at Osama bin Laden's terror camps in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact that al-Qaeda had already been responsible for deadly
attacks against the United States, including the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.
It is highly questionable whether bombing Yugoslavia affirmed NATO's credibility in the short term. In the long term, it certainly
did not. The war marked the first and only time NATO had ever attacked a sovereign state. It did so unilaterally, absent any threat
to any member nation, and without the approval of the United Nations Security Council. "If NATO can go for military action without
international blessing, it calls into question the reliability of NATO as a security partner," Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak,
then Moscow's ambassador to NATO, told me at a San Francisco reception.
Twenty years later, Operation Allied force has been all but forgotten in the United States. In a country that has been waging
nonstop war on terrorism for almost the entire 21st century, the 1999 NATO air war is but a footnote in modern American history.
Serbs, however, still seethe at the injustice and hypocrisy of it all. The bombed-out ruins of the old Yugoslav Ministry of Defense,
Radio Television of Serbia headquarters and other buildings serve as constant, painful reminders of the horrors endured by the Serbian
people in service of NATO's credibility.
Brett Wilkins is a San Francisco-based author and activist. His work, which focuses on issues of war and peace and human rights,
is archived atwww.brettwilkins.com
But Clintons are mobsters in disguise, so what's the difference. Jared Kushner father is as close to a mobster as one can get (hiring a prostitute to compromise relative is one of his tricks)
Notable quotes:
"... Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale ..."
Don't ever think the Democratic establishment is your friend. They want you to die in foreign wars and your children to
work in starvation-wage service jobs until they're 70 so that the top 0.1% can buy their kids' way into Yale
Navi 9:50 AM - 22 Mar 2019
"It's already happening" while the DCCC is trying their best to stop primary challenges is a little shortsighted no? If you
don't call out what is wrong what are you really 'fixing'? We can walk and chew gum at the same time!
Yves here. This post focuses on an important slice of history in what "freedom" has meant in
political discourse in the US. But I wish it had at least mentioned how a well-funded, then
extreme right wing effort launched an open-ended campaign to render US values more friendly to
business. They explicitly sought to undo New Deal programs and weaken or end other social
safety nets. Nixon Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell codified the strategy for this initiative
in the so-called Powell Memo of 1971.
One of the most effective spokesmen for this libertarian program was Milton Friedman, whose
bestseller Free to Choose became the foundation for a ten-part TV series.
America is having a heated debate about the meaning of the word socialism . We'd be
better served if, instead, we were debating the meaning of freedom .
The
Oregonian reported last week that fully 156,000 families are on the edge of homelessness in
our small-population state. Every one of those households is now paying more than 50 percent of
its monthly income on rent, and none of them has any savings; one medical bill, major car repair
or job loss, and they're on the streets.
While socialism may or may not solve their problem, the more pressing issue we have is an
entire political party and a huge sector of the billionaire class who see homelessness not as a
problem, but as a symptom of a "free" society.
The words freedom and liberty are iconic in American culture -- probably more so than with
any other nation because they're so intrinsic to the literature, declarations and slogans of our
nation's founding.
The irony -- of the nation founded on the world's greatest known genocide (the systematic
state murder of tens of millions of Native Americans) and over three centuries of legalized
slavery and a century and a half of oppression and exploitation of the descendants of those
slaves -- is extraordinary. It presses us all to bring true freedom and liberty to all
Americans.
But what do those words mean?
If you ask the Koch brothers and their buddies -- who slap those words on pretty much
everything they do -- you'd get a definition that largely has to do with being "free" from
taxation and regulation. And, truth be told, if you're morbidly rich, that makes a certain amount
of sense, particularly if your main goal is to get richer and richer, regardless of your
behavior's impact on working-class people, the environment, or the ability of government to
function.
On the other hand, the definition of freedom and liberty that's been embraced by so-called
"democratic socialist" countries -- from Canada to almost all of Europe to Japan and Australia --
you'd hear a definition that's closer to that articulated by Franklin D. Roosevelt when he
proposed, in January 1944, a " second Bill
of Rights " to be added to our Constitution.
FDR's proposed amendments included the right to a job, and the right to be paid enough to
live comfortably; the right to "adequate food and clothing and recreation"; the right to start a
business and run it without worrying about "unfair competition and domination by monopolies"; the
right "of every family to a decent home"; the right to "adequate medical care to achieve and
enjoy good health"; the right to government-based "protection from the economic fears of old age,
sickness, accident, and unemployment"; and the right "to a good education."
Roosevelt pointed out that, "All of these rights spell security." He added, "America's own
rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have
been carried into practice for our citizens. For unless there is security here at home there
cannot be lasting peace in the world."
The other nations mentioned earlier took President Roosevelt's advice to heart. Progressive
"social democracy" has kept Europe, Canada, and the developed nations of the East and South
Pacific free of war for almost a century -- a mind-boggling feat when considering the history of
the developed world since the 1500s.
Just prior to FDR winning the White House in the election of 1932, the nation had been
treated to 12 years of a bizarre Republican administration that was the model for today's GOP. In
1920, Warren Harding won the presidency on a campaign of "more industry in government, less
government in industry" -- privatize and deregulate -- and a promise to drop the top tax rate of
91 percent down to 25 percent.
He kept both promises, putting the nation into a sugar-high spin called the Roaring '20s,
where the rich got fabulously rich and working-class people were being beaten and murdered by
industrialists when they tried to unionize. Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover (the three Republican
presidents from 1920 to 1932) all cheered on the assaults, using phrases like "the right to work"
to describe a union-free nation.
In the end, the result of the "
horses and sparrows " economics advocated by Harding ("feed more oats to the horses and
there'll be more oats in the horse poop to fatten the sparrows" -- that generation's version of
trickle-down economics) was the Republican Great Depression (yes, they called it that until after
World War II).
Even though Roosevelt was fabulously popular -- the only president to be elected four times --
the right-wingers of his day were loud and outspoken in their protests of what they called
"socialist" programs like Social Security, the right to unionize, and government-guaranteed job
programs including the WPA, REA, CCC, and others.
The Klan and American Nazis were assembling by the hundreds of thousands nationwide -- nearly
30,000 in Madison Square Garden
alone -- encouraged by wealthy and powerful "economic royalists" preaching "freedom" and "
liberty ." Like the Kochs' Freedomworks , that generation's huge and well-funded
(principally by the DuPonts' chemical fortune) organization was the Liberty League .
Roosevelt's generation had seen the results of this kind of hard-right "freedom" rhetoric in
Italy, Spain, Japan and Germany, the very nations with which we were then at war.
Speaking of "the grave dangers of 'rightist reaction' in this Nation," Roosevelt told America in that same speech that: "[I]f
history were to repeat itself and we were to return to the so-called 'normalcy' of the 1920s --
then it is certain that even though we shall have conquered our enemies on the battlefields
abroad, we shall have yielded to the spirit of Fascism here at home."
Although right-wingers are still working hard to disassemble FDR's New Deal -- the GOP budget
for 2019 contains massive cuts to Social Security, as well as to Medicare and Medicaid -- we got
halfway toward his notion of freedom and liberty here in the United States:
You're not free if
you're old and deep in poverty, so we have Social Security (although the GOP wants to gut it).
You're not free if you're hungry, so we have food stamps/SNAP (although the GOP wants to gut
them). You're not free if you're homeless, so we have housing assistance and homeless shelters
(although the GOP fights every effort to help homeless people). You're not free if you're sick
and can't get medical care, so we have Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare (although the GOP wants
to gut them all). You're not free if you're working more than 40 hours a week and still can't
meet basic expenses, so we have minimum wage laws and the right to unionize (although the GOP
wants to gut both). You're not free if you can't read, so we have free public schools (although
the GOP is actively working to gut them). You're not free if you can't vote, so we've passed
numerous laws to guarantee the right to vote (although the GOP is doing everything it can to keep
tens of millions of Americans from voting).
The billionaire class and their wholly owned Republican politicians keep trying to tell us
that "freedom" means the government doesn't provide any of the things listed above.
Instead, they tell us (as Ron Paul famously did in a GOP primary debate years ago) that, if we're
broke and sick, we're "free" to die like a feral dog in the gutter.
Freedom is homelessness, in the minds of the billionaires who own the GOP.
Poverty, lack of education, no access to health care, poor-paying jobs, and barriers to voting
are all proof of a free society, they tell us, which is why America's lowest life expectancy,
highest maternal and childhood death rates, lowest levels of education, and lowest pay
are almost all in GOP-controlled states .
America -- particularly the Democratic Party -- is engaged in a debate right now about the
meaning of socialism . It would be a big help for all of us if we were, instead, to have
an honest debate about the meaning of the words freedom and liberty .
Let us not forget the other propaganda arm of Republican party and big money- Fox news. They
spew the freedom nonsense while not adhering to any definition of the word.
I worked in the midwest as an Engineer in the 90s to early 2000s and saw plants being
gutted/shifted overseas, Union influence curtailed and mid level and bottom pay stay flat for
decades; all in the name of free market.
Sadly the same families that are the worst affected vote Republican! But we know all this
and have known it for a while. What will change?
The intro to this post is spot on. The Powell memo outlined a strategy for a corporate
coup d'eta. Is was completely successful. Now that the business class rules America, their only
vision is to continue the quest and cannibalize the country and enslave its people by any means
possible. What tools do they use to achieve these ends? -- debt, fear, violence and pandering
to human vanity as a motivator. Again, very successful.
Instead of honest public debate- which is impossible when undertaken with liars and thieves,
a good old manifesto or pamphlet like Common Sense is in order. Something calling out concrete
action that can be taken by commoners to regain their social respect and power. That should
scare the living daylights out of the complacent and smug elite.
Its that, or a lot of public infrastructure is gong to be broken up by the mob- which
doesn't work out in the long run. The nations that learn to work with and inspire their
populations will prosper- the rest will have a hard time of it. Look no further than America's
fall.
This piece raises some important points, but aims too narrowly at one political party,
when the D-party has also been complicit in sharing the framing of "freedom" as less
government/regulation/taxation. After all, it was the Clinton administration that did welfare
"reform", deregulation of finance, and declared the end of the era of "big government", and
both Clinton and Obama showed willingness to cut Social Security and Medicare in a "grand
bargain".
If in place of "the GOP," the author had written, "The national Democratic and Republican
parties over the past fifty years," his claim would be much more accurate. To believe what he
says about "the GOP," you have to pretend that Clinton, and Obama, and Pelosi, and Schumer, and
Feinstein simply don't exist and never did. The author's implicit valorization of Obamacare is
even more disheartening.
But perhaps this is the *point* of the piece after all? If I were a consultant to the DNC
(and I make less than $100,000/yr so I am clearly not), I would advocate that they commission,
underscore, and reward pieces exactly like this one. For the smartest ones surely grasp that
the rightist oligarchic policy takeover has in fact happened, and that it has left in its wake
millions of disaffected, indebted, uneducated, uninsured Americans.
(Suggesting that it hadn't was the worst idiocy of Clinton's 2016 campaign. It would have
been much better had she admitted it and blamed it on the Republican Senate while holding dear
old Obama up as a hamstrung martyr for the cause. I mean, this is what everybody at DailyKos
already believes, and the masses -- being poor and uneducated and desperate -- can be brought
around to believe anything, or anyway, enough of them can be.)
I would advocate that the DNC double down on its rightful claims to Roosevelt's inheritance,
embrace phrases like "social democracy" and "freedom from economic insecurity," and shift
leftward in all its official rhetoric. Admit the evisceration of the Roosevelt tradition, but
blame it all on the GOP. Maybe *maybe* even acknowledge that past Democratic leaders were a
little naive and idealistic in their pursuit of bipartisanship, and did not understand the
truly horrible intentions of the GOP. But today's Democrats are committed to wresting back the
rights of the people from the evil clutches of the Koch Republicans. This sort of thing.
Would my advice be followed? Or would the *really* smart ones in the room demure? If so, why
do you think they would?
In short, I read this piece as one stage in an ongoing dialectic in the Democratic Party in
the run-up to the 2020 election wherein party leaders try to determine how leftward its
"official" rhetoric is able to sway before becoming *so* unbelievable (in light of historical
facts) that it cannot serve as effective propaganda -- even among Americans!
Team Blue elites are the children of Bill Clinton and the Third Way, so the echo chamber was
probably terrible. Was Bill Clinton a bad President? He was the greatest Republican President!
The perception of this answer is a key. Who rose and joined Team Blue through this run? Many
Democrats don't recognize this, or they don't want to rock the boat. This is the structural
problem with Team Blue. The "generic Democrat" is AOC, Omar, Sanders, Warren, and a handful of
others.
Can the Team Blue elites embrace a Roosevelt identity? The answer is no. Their ideology is
so wildly divergent they can't adjust without a whole sale conversion.
More succinctly, the Third Way isn't about helping Democrats win by accepting not every
battle can be won. Its about advancing right wing politics and pretending this isn't what its
about. If they are too clear about good policy, they will be accused of betrayal.
This article makes me wonder if the GOP is still a political party anymore. I know, I know,
they have the party structure, the candidates, the budget and all the rest of it but when you
look at their policies and what they are trying to do, the question does arise. Are they doing
it because this is what they believe is their identity as a party or is it that they are simply
a vehicle with the billionaires doing the real driving and recruiting? An obvious point is that
among billionaires, they see no need to form their own political party which should be telling
clue. Certainly the Democrats are no better.
Maybe the question that American should ask themselves is just what does it mean to be an
American in the year 2020? People like Norman Rockwell and his Four Freedoms could have said a
lot of what it meant some 60 years ago and his work has been updated to reflect the modern era
( https://www.galeriemagazine.com/norman-rockwell-four-freedoms-modern/
) but the long and the short of it is that things are no longer working for most people anymore
-- and not just in America. But a powerful spring can only be pushed back and held in place for
so long before there is a rebound effect and I believe that I am seeing signs of this the past
few years.
" a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be
established for all -- regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of
the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and
his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from
unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and
unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security."
America is having a heated debate about the meaning of the word socialism. We'd be better
served if, instead, we were debating the meaning of freedom.
I agree, and we should also be having a debate about capitalism as it actually exists. In
the US capitalism is always talked about in rosy non-specific terms (e.g. a preference for
markets or support for entrepreneurship) while anybody who says they don't necessarily support
capitalism has to answer for Stalin's gulag's or the Khmer Rouge. All the inequalities and
injustices that have helped people like Howard Schultz or Jeff Bezos become billionaire
capitalists somehow aren't part of capitalism, just different problems to be solved somehow but
definitely not by questioning capitalism.
Last night I watched the HBO documentary on Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos and I couldn't
help but laugh at all these powerful politicians, investors, and legal giants going along with
someone who never once demonstrated or even explained how her groundbreaking innovation
actually worked. $900 million was poured into that company before people realized something
that a Stanford professor interviewed in the documentary saw when she first met Holmes.
Fracking companies have been able to consistently raise funding despite consistently losing
money and destroying the environment in the process. Bank balance sheets were protected while
working people lost everything in the name of preserving American capitalism. I think it's good
to debate socialism and capitalism, but there's not really any point if we aren't going to be
talking about Actually Existing Capitalism rather than the hypothetical version that's trotted
out anytime someone suggests an alternative.
There was a great comment here on NC a little while ago, something to the effect of
"capitalism has the logic of a cancer cell. It's a pile of money whose only goal is to become a
bigger pile of money." Of course good things can happen as a side effect of it becoming a
bigger pile of money: innovation, efficiencies, improved standard of living, etc. but we need
government (not industry) regulation to keep the bad side effects of capitalism in check (like
the cancer eventually killing its host).
Shoot, must have missed that comment but it's a good metaphor. Reminds me of Capital vol. 1,
which Marx starts with a long and dense treatment of the nature of commodities and
commodification in order to capture this process whereby capitalists produce things people
really do want or need in order to get at what they really want: return on their
investment.
I also agree but I think we need to have a the same heated debate over what capitalism
means. Over the years I have been subjected to (exposed) to more flavors of socialism than I
can count. Yet, other than an introductory economics class way back when, no debatable words
about what 'capitalism' is seems to get attention. Maybe it's time to do that and hope that
some agreeable definition of 'freedom' falls out.
of course maybe socialism is the only thing that ever really could solve homelessness, given
that it seems to be at this point a worldwide problem, although better some places than others
(like the U.S. and UK).
This article lets the Dems off the hook. They have actively supported the Billionaire
Agenda for decades now; sometimes actively (like when they helped gut welfare) and sometimes by
enabling Repubs objectives (like voter suppression).
At this point in time, the Dem leadership is working to deep six Medicare for All.
With 'friends' like the Dems, who needs the Repubs?
1) In the history, a mention of the attempted coup against FDR would be good. See The
Plot to Seize the White House by Jules Archer. ( Amazon link )
2) For the contemporary intellectual history, I really appreciated Nancy MacLean's
Democracy in Chains . ( Amazon
link ) Look her up on youtube or Democracy Now . Her book got a bit of press and she
interviews well.
This post seems heavily slanted against the GOP and does not take into account how
pro-business the Democrats have become. I tenuously agree with Yves intro that much of the
current pro business value system campaign in the US was started with the political far right
and the Lewis Powell Memo. And that campaign kicked into high gear during the Reagan
Presidency.
But as that "pro business campaign" gained steam, the Democratic Party, IMO, realized that
they could partake in the "riches" as well and sold their political soul for a piece of the
action. Hartman's quote about the billionaire class should include their "wholly owned
Republicans and Democrat politicians".
As Lambert mentions (paraphrasing), "The left puts the working class first. Both liberals
and conservatives put markets first, liberals with many more layers of indirection (e.g.,
complex eligibility requirements, credentialing) because that creates niches from which their
professional base benefits".
As an aside, while the pro-business/capitalism on steroids people have sought more
"freedom", they have made the US and the world less free for the rest of us.
Also the over focusing on freedom is not uniquely GOP. As Hartman mentions, "the words
freedom and liberty are iconic in American culture -- probably more so than with any other
nation because they're so intrinsic to the literature, declarations and slogans of our nation's
founding." US culture has taken the concept of freedom to an extreme version of
individualism.
That is not surprising given our history.
The DRD4 gene is a dopamine receptor gene. One stretch of the gene is repeated a variable
number of times, and the version with seven repeats (the "7R" form) produces a receptor protein
that is relatively unresponsive to dopamine. Being unresponsive to dopamine means that people
who have this gene have a host of related traits -- sensation and novelty seeking, risk taking,
impulsivity, and, probably most consistently, ADHD. -- -- Seems like the type of people that
would value extreme (i.e. non-collective) forms of freedom
The United States is the individualism poster child for at least two reasons. First
there's immigration. Currently, 12 percent of Americans are immigrants, another 12 percent are
children of immigrants, and everyone else except for the 0.9 percent pure Native Americans
descend from people who emigrated within the last five hundred years.
And who were the immigrants?' Those in the settled world who were cranks, malcontents,
restless, heretical, black sheep, hyperactive, hypomanic, misanthropic, itchy, unconventional,
yearning to be free, yearning to be rich, yearning to be out of their, damn boring repressive
little hamlet, yearning. -- -- Again seems like the type of people that would value freedom in
all aspects of life and not be interested in collectivism
Couple that with the second reason -- for the majority of its colonial and independent
history, America has had a moving frontier luring those whose extreme prickly optimism made
merely booking passage to the New World insufficiently, novel -- and you've got America the
individualistic.
The 7R variant mentioned above occurs in about 23 percent of Europeans and European
Americans. And in East Asians? 1 percent. When East Asians domesticated rice and invented
collectivist society, there was massive selection against the 7R variant. Regardless of the
cause, East Asian cultural collectivism coevolved with selection against the 7R variant.
So which came first, 7R frequency or cultural style? The 4R and 7R variants, along with the
2R, occur worldwide, implying they already existed when humans radiated out of Africa 60,000 to
130,000 years ago. A high incidence of 7R, associated with impulsivity and novelty seeking, is
the legacy of humans who made the greatest migrations in human history.
So it seems that many of the people who immigrated to the US were impulsive, novelty
seeking, risk takers. As a counterpoint, many people that migrated to the US did not do so by
choice but were forced from their homes and their countries by wars.
The point of this long comment is that for some people the concept of freedom can be taken
to extreme -- a lack of gun control laws, financial regulation, extremes of wealth, etc. After
a brief period in the 1940's, 1950's, and early 1960's when the US was more collective, we
became greedy, consumerist, and consumption oriented, aided by the political and business
elites as mentioned in the post.
If we want the US to be a more collective society we have to initially do so in our
behaviors i.e. laws and regulations that rein in the people who would take the concept of
freedom to an extreme. Then maybe over an evolutionary time period some of the move impulsive,
sensation seeking, ADHDness, genes can be altered to a more balance mix of what makes the US
great with more of the collective genes.
IMO, if we do not begin to work on becoming a collective culture now, then climate change,
water scarcity, food scarcity, and resource scarcity will do it for us the hard way.
In these days of short attention spans I apologize for the long comment. The rest of my day
is busy and I do not have more time to shorten the comment. I wanted to develop an argument for
how the evolutionary and dysfunctional forms of freedom have gotten us to this point. And what
we need to do to still have some freedom but also "play nice and share in the future sandbox of
climate change and post fossil fuel society.
Is this a plan of the elite to introduce national security state in action. Are they afraid of the collapse of neoliberal social
order and try to take precautions?
Notable quotes:
"... These factors would have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity, i.e., strength and stiffness. ..."
"... the superstructure above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. ..."
"... Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping of a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse. ..."
"... no molten metal ..."
"... A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." ..."
"... Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants. Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories : ..."
"... Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be? ..."
"... Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002, Silverstein was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was only $386,000,000. ..."
"... Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if an attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could be greatly reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way. ..."
"... All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies, and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never clarified). ..."
"... This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down. ..."
"... http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully flawed NIST report ..."
"... There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something that would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area. ..."
"... The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what happened at WTC. ..."
"... If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless. ..."
"... Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt. It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob. ..."
"... The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. ..."
What does the evidence show about the Solomon Brothers Building in Manhattan?
Numerous structural engineers – the people who know the most about office building vulnerabilities and accidents – say that the
official explanation of why building 7 at the World Trade Center collapsed on 9/11 is "impossible", "defies common logic" and "violates
the law of physics":
The collapse of WTC7 looks like it may have been the result of a controlled demolition. This should have been looked
into as part of the original investigation
Robert F. Marceau, with over 30 years of structural
engineering experience:
From videos of the collapse of building 7, the penthouse drops first prior to the collapse, and it can be noted that
windows, in a vertical line, near the location of first interior column line are blown out, and reveal smoke from those
explosions. This occurs in a vertical line in symmetrical fashion an equal distance in toward the center of the building
from each end. When compared to controlled demolitions, one can see the similarities
Kamal S. Obeid, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Berkeley and 30 years of engineering experience,
says:
Photos of the steel, evidence about how the buildings collapsed, the unexplainable collapse of WTC 7, evidence of thermite
in the debris as well as several other red flags, are quite troubling indications of well planned and controlled demolition
Steven L. Faseler, structural engineer with
over 20 years of experience in the design and construction industry:
World Trade Center 7 appears to be a controlled demolition. Buildings do not suddenly fall straight down by accident
Alfred Lee Lopez, with 48 years of experience
in all types of buildings:
I agree the fire did not cause the collapse of the three buildings [please ignore any reference in this essay to the
Twin Towers. This essay focuses solely on Building 7]. The most realistic cause of the collapse is that the buildings were
imploded
Ronald H. Brookman, structural engineer, with a masters degree in Engineering from UC Davis,
writes:
Why would all 47 stories of WTC 7 fall straight down to the ground in about seven seconds the same day [i.e. on September
11th]? It was not struck by any aircraft or engulfed in any fire. An independent investigation is justified for all three collapses
including the surviving steel samples and the composition of the dust
WTC 7 Building could not have collapsed as a result of internal fire and external debris. NO plane hit this building. This
is the only case of a steel frame building collapsing through fire in the world. The fire on this building was small & localized
therefore what is the cause?
In my view, the chances of the three buildings collapsing symmetrically into their own footprint, at freefall speed, by
any other means than by controlled demolition, are so remote that there is no other plausible explanation
How did the structures collapse in near symmetrical fashion when the apparent precipitating causes were asymmetrical loading?
The collapses defies common logic from an elementary structural engineering perspective.
***
Heat transmission (diffusion) through the steel members would have been irregular owing to differing sizes of the individual
members; and, the temperature in the members would have dropped off precipitously the further away the steel was from the flames-just
as the handle on a frying pan doesn't get hot at the same rate as the pan on the burner of the stove. These factors would
have resulted in the structural framing furthest from the flames remaining intact and possessing its full structural integrity,
i.e., strength and stiffness.
Structural steel is highly ductile, when subjected to compression and bending it buckles and bends long before reaching
its tensile or shear capacity. Under the given assumptions, "if" the structure in the vicinity started to weaken, the superstructure
above would begin to lean in the direction of the burning side. The opposite, intact, side of the building would resist
toppling until the ultimate capacity of the structure was reached, at which point, a weak-link failure would undoubtedly occur.
Nevertheless, the ultimate failure mode would have been a toppling of the upper floors to one side-much like the topping
of a tall redwood tree-not a concentric, vertical collapse.
For this reason alone, I rejected the official explanation for the collapse .
We design and analyze buildings for the overturning stability to resist the lateral loads with the combination of the gravity
loads. Any tall structure failure mode would be a fall over to its side. It is impossible that heavy steel columns could collapse
at the fraction of the second within each story and subsequently at each floor below.We do not know the phenomenon of the high
rise building to disintegrate internally faster than the free fall of the debris coming down from the top.
The engineering science and the law of physics simply doesn't know such possibility. Only very sophisticated controlled
demolition can achieve such result, eliminating the natural dampening effect of the structural framing huge mass that should
normally stop the partial collapse. The pancake theory is a fallacy, telling us that more and more energy would be generated
to accelerate the collapse. Where would such energy would be coming from?
Antonio Artha,with 15+ years of experience
in building design
Fire and impact were insignificant in all three buildings [Again, please ignore any reference to the Twin Towers this essay
focuses solely on WTC7]. Impossible for the three to collapse at free-fall speed. Laws of physics were not suspended on 9/11,
unless proven otherwise
James Milton Bruner, Major, U.S. Air Force,
instructor and assistant professor in the Deptartment of Engineering Mechanics & Materials, USAF Academy, and a technical writer
and editor, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
It is very suspicious that fire brought down Building 7 yet the Madrid hotel fire was still standing after 24 hours of fire.
This is very suspicious to me because I design buildings for a living
David Anthony Dorau, practicing structural
engineer with 18 years' experience in the inspection and design of buildings under 5 stories tall, who worked as a policy analyst
for the Office of Technology Assessment, an arm of the U.S. Congress providing independent research and reports on technological
matters
Russell T. Connors, designed many buildings
and other types of structures
The above is just a sample. Many other structural
engineers have questioned the collapse of Building 7, as have numerous top experts in other relevant disciplines, including:
The top European expert on controlled building demolition, Danny Jowenko (part
1, part 2,
part 3)
Harry G. Robinson, III – Professor and Dean Emeritus, School of Architecture and Design, Howard University. Past President
of two major national architectural organizations – National Architectural Accrediting Board, 1996, and National Council of Architectural
Registration Boards, 1992. In 2003 he was awarded the highest honor bestowed by the Washington Chapter of the American Institute
of Architects, the Centennial Medal. In 2004 he was awarded the District of Columbia Council of Engineering and Architecture Societies
Architect of the Year award. Principal, TRG Consulting Global / Architecture, Urban Design, Planning, Project Strategies. Veteran
U.S. Army, awarded the Bronze Star for bravery and the Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Viet Nam –
says:
The collapse was too symmetrical to have been eccentrically generated. The destruction was symmetrically initiated to
cause the buildings to implode as they did
Watch this short video on Building 7 by Architects and Engineers (ignore any reference to the Twin Towers, deaths on 9/11, or
any other topics other than WTC7):
Fish In a Barrel
Poking holes in the government's spin on Building 7 is so easy that it is like shooting fish in a barrel.
As just one example, the spokesman for the government agency which says that the building collapsed due to fire said there was
no molten metal at ground zero:
And see witness statements at the beginning of this video
Indeed, not only was structural steel somehow melted on 9/11, but it was evaporated. As the New York Times
reports, an expert
stated about World Trade Center building 7:
A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers
said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated
in extraordinarily high temperatures.
(pay-per-view). Evaporation means conversion from a liquid
to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate
them
Please remember that firefighters sprayed millions of gallons of water on the fires, and also applied high-tech fire retardants.
Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the
U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratories:
Approximately three million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts, and 1 million gallons fell as
rainwater, between 9/11 and 9/21 .
"Firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on [ground zero]. You couldn't even begin to imagine how much water was
pumped in there," said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. "It was like you
were creating a giant lake."
This photograph may capture a sense of how wet the ground became due to the constant spraying:
The fact that there were raging fires and molten metal even after the application of
massive quantities of water and fire retardants shows how silly the government spokesman's claim is.
Again, this has nothing to do with "inside job" no one was killed in the collapse of Building 7, no wars were launched based on
a rallying cry of "remember the Solomon Brothers building", and no civil liberties were lost based on a claim that we have to prevent
future WTC7 tragedies.
It is merely meant to show that government folks sometimes lie even about issues tangentially related to 9/11.
Pooua > Wolfen Batroach • 2 years ago
Why would the Insiders bother blowing Building 7? Indeed, why would the Insiders bother with WTC at all? Exactly what were
the motivations of the Insiders supposed to be?
JusticeFor911 > Pooua
Larry Silverstein had a magic ball that told him to insure the buildings for "terrorist attacks". In February of 2002,
Silverstein was awarded $861,000,000 for his insurance claims from Industrial Risk Insurers. His initial investment in WTC 7 was
only $386,000,000.
I'd say nearly half of $1,000,000,000.00 was the primary cause to include this building with the towers. Keep in mind that
President Bush's brother Marvin was a principal in the company Securacom that provided security for the WTC, United Airlines and
Dulles International Airport. Are dots connecting yet?
Pooua > JusticeFor911
If you buy a new car, you take out full coverage insurance on it. Insuring billion-dollar buildings is standard procedure,
especially when one had already suffered a terrorist attack. You insinuation is nothing but gossip and suggestion.
No, Securacom did not provide security for WTC; that's the job of the Port Authority of NY & NJ. Securacom had a contract to
perform a limited service for PANYNJ, and Marvin Bush was only a bit player (he was on the board of directors) in the company.
Your paranoid ramblings are lies.
IBSHILLIN > Pooua
Perhaps after the first couple of attempted attacks on the WTC in the 90's they had a good look at what would happen if
an attack was successful. Perhaps they then decided that the massive collateral damage from a partial or messy collapse could
be greatly reduced by having the buildings ready to be brought down in a controlled way.
All this would have to be kept secret as noone would work in a building lined with explosives. However the insurance companies,
and the owner of the building would know, and this would explain the comments made by silverstein (comments that he himself never
clarified).
This may all be completely wrong, but lets face it, explosives did bring these buildings down.
Pooua > IBSHILLIN
I find it amazing that you consider yourself such an unquestionable expert that you not only feel qualified to insist that
explosives brought down the WTC buildings, even in contradiction to scores of scientists, engineers and investigators of NIST,
FEMA, FBI and MIT who say otherwise, and you do so without offering any evidence at all to support your bizarre claim.
No building the size of any of the WTC buildings has ever been brought down by controlled demolition, but of those that come
closest, the planning took years, and the rigging took months of hard work by teams of experts working around the clock. This
is not something that can be hidden.
Your suggestion is entirely preposterous and without merit.
NIST, FEMA, FBI and MIT are worthless entities! What about the experts in that documentary? Nanothermite brought them down
smart guy!
Pooua > ihaveabrain • 25 days ago
You posted a 1.5-hour video. I am not here to watch a 1.5-hour video; I'm here to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC
7. If you have something to say, say it here.
NIST has been the premier standards body used by the US government for a century, covering virtually every aspect of engineering
and public safety in this country. It employes thousands of scientists, engineers and technicians. For you to claim that it is
a worthless entity is idiocy on your part.
linked1 > Pooua • 24 days ago
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com ...How about a 5 hour video
that methodically refutes and explains the flaws of virtually every aspect of the 'official story', in particular the shamefully
flawed NIST report
You claim to want to discuss the topic of the collapse of WTC-7 but you can't be bothered to watch painstakingly researched
documentaries that include thousands of witnesses, victims, scientists, and structural professionals.
You ought to educate yourself before calling other's claims 'worthless idiocy'. You are wrong, and history will prove you wrong.
Pooua > linked1
I've been reading arguments about 9/11 for two years. I've been arguing about other issues for the last 25 years, at least
since I took a class in classical logic. What you need to understand is, you aren't arguing anything when you send me off to listen
to someone else. The other guy might be arguing something, but you aren't doing anything. And, the fact that I've spent two years
reading everything I could find on the subject makes me strongly suspect that this five-hour video would be just a waste of my
time.
If you want to discuss this matter, then discuss it. Don't send me off to spend hours of my time listening to someone else.
You explain it. If you can't explain it, then you don't understand it, and you are wasting everyone's time.
mulegino1 . > Pooua
The levels of energy required to turn most of the Twin Towers and WTC7 into nanoparticles (thus the pyrocastic flow which only
occurs in volcanic eruptions and nuclear detonations) would be thousands of orders of magnitude greater than airliner impacts
and hydrocarbon based office fires, which are claimed to have initiated a "gravity collapse".
How could a "gravity collapse" perfectly mimic the detonation of a small tactical nuclear device or devices-electromagnetic
pulse, molten lava and a mushroom cloud?
Pooua > mulegino1
I want you to look at this image from the WTC on 9/11. It shows the debris after the Towers collapsed. Does this look like
nanoparticles to you? Most of the debris was bigger than a man's fist.
Thumbnail
There were no pyroclastic flows at WTC. That's obvious by the fact that pieces of intact paper lay everywhere, something
that would be impossible if a hot cloud covered the area.
The reason that you have to resort to esoteric explanations for what happened at WTC is that you believe lies about what
happened at WTC.
mulegino1 . > Pooua
If you really believe that this was done by hydrocarbon based fires begun by burning jet fuel you are beyond hopeless.
There was indeed a pyroclasticas flow as anyone with youtube can determine for themselves.
Pooua > WilliamBinney • a year ago
It is your job to do more than make idiotic, speculative assertions and pretend that constitutes a reason for disregarding
the government's account of the event. Yet, you all have completely failed to do anything except expose your own inability to
account for the events of that day.
Dizzer13 > Pooua • a year ago
Why do you trust the government so much? That to me is idiotic. History has proven pretty much every government to be corrupt.
It's sheep like you that allow them to get away with it. Just keep walking sheep, don't want to fall back from the mob.
mulegino1 . > Pooua • 2 years ago
The "accepted scholarship" is conducted almost entirely by government shills for the benefit of dumbed down Americans whose
information intake is limited to Fox, CNN, and MSNBC.
The official narrative is so ludicrous from any standpoint that the "debunkers" resort to wildly implausible scenarios in order
to convince the above cited demographic that the government and the major national media were reporting factual information when
in fact they were reading from a script. And it was a very poorly written script. The Bin Laden bogeyman was already being invoked
before the buildings exploded.
What you've got here is a pseudo-religious narrative designed to so enrage the dumbed down sheeple that they will lash out
in their fury against virtually anyone designated by the powers that be as the enemy- a Sorelian myth.
Like any false narrative, the official story breaks down at the level of discrete facts and can only survive as a holistic
mythologized, meta-historical events.
"... Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results. ..."
"... "I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine. "He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side." ..."
"... "The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims, for over 70 years... " WARNING: Graphic Images ..."
"... Epstein has dirt on EVERYONE ... If he ever gets in a legitimate court room? - many, many, shitty people will be in trouble ... GOP and Democrat. ..."
"... The ruling comes after Senators on the Judiciary Committee asked that the DOJ open an investigation into the deal, which was offered at a time when Robert Mueller was running the FBI . ..."
"... I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again . The $wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become 'depressed, etc.' ..."
Both Clinton and Trump were close to Epstein. To me this smells like there was a bi-partisan consensus to bury this, and
only now that the Clintons are no longer dominating the Democrat party, do we get some results.
While Trump has recently distanced himself from Epstein, a 64-year-old financier, it wasn't always that way.
"I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy," Trump said of Epstein during a 2002 interview with New York magazine.
"He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger
side."
Attorney Spencer Kuvin, one of dozens of lawyers who successfully sued Epstein on behalf of roughly 30 women who claimed
he lured them to his Palm Beach mansion for sexually-charged massages when they were as young as 14, said he always found the
comment curious.
"How would he know that?" he said of Trump's acknowledgement of Epstein's penchant for young women. The interview came nearly
six years before Epstein's secret sex life exploded into public view when the money manager pleaded guilty to Florida charges
of procuring and soliciting a minor for prostitution. "Why would he make a joke like that?" the West Palm Beach attorney asked.
Be nice if someone found the guest list because Bill Clinton wouldn't be able to kill that many people to cover it up. It'd
be sweet if they found evidence that Trump went, because he definitely did. He's probably the one to name it "Lolita Express."...no,
that was probably Bill.
"The Government aligned themselves with Epstein, working against his victims, for 11 years..." THE SAME can be said for
this: "The Government aligned themselves with APARTHEID Israhell, working against their Palestinians victims,
for over 70 years... " WARNING:
Graphic Images
I assume MOSSAD & friends will have to pull some very fancy rabbits out of their hat to get this buried again. The
$wamp can't afford to have him cooperating, so I'm guessing Epstein will have to 'retire' to Tel-Aviv - or have an accident/become
'depressed, etc.'
I will further bet that JE has had adequate notice of all this to be getting out of the USA to Balfourstan - a non-extradition
country - ASAP.
As you dig into these stories, one singular theory emerges again and again: Sexual deviants and psychos have been groomed for
office because they are easier to blackmail and control.
Peter
Strzok's big fat FBI lie
about the reason for the set up of the private email server. The FBI knew years before they released
tranches of Hillary's emails starting in Sep. 2016. Tellingly, he volunteered this explanation even though he wasn't asked about WHEN.
Whoops.
Peter Strzok. (Jun. 27, 2018)
. Peter Strzok TRANSCRIPTION of Interview with Peter Strzok released by Rep. Doug Collins (GA 9th),
Committee on the Judiciary, pgs. 312. U.S. House of Representatives.
FACT: The alternative media is better at presenting FACTS than the FBI. Her domain was registered in January 2009.
The 'rank and file' FBI SUCK at their jobs! When ordinary citizens do a better job at finding
facts, then why do we employee these people?
Human society is way to complex for alpha males to succeed unconditionally... Quite a different set of traits is often needed.
Notable quotes:
"... Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. ..."
"... Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference. ..."
"... I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea right ..."
"... Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status. ..."
"... "They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different." ..."
"... "He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing that wrecked him." ..."
Superficially, Hemingway was correct. But on a deeper level, he missed the reality of the heightened sense of
entitlement that the very rich possess, as well as the deference that so many people automatically show to them. The rich
shouldn't be different in this way, but they are. In some other societies, such entitlement and deference would accrue to
senior party members, senior clergymen, or hereditary nobility (who might not have much money at all).
"Go with the winner." That is how it works for the alpha male (a chimp, an ape, or a gorilla) for most followers anyway. Some will challenge. If victorious, followers will line up (more go-with-the-winner). If defeated, an outcast.
Without a doubt Hemingway had a rather catty attitude toward his literary rival, but in this instance I think the debunking
is merited. It's quite possible that rich people act the way we would act if we were rich, and that Fitzgerald's tiresome obsession
with rich people didn't cut very deep. Hemingway is saying: take away all that money and the behavior would change as well. It's
the money (or the power in your example) that makes the difference.
In my opinion, the fact that if they had less money would change the way they think, does not change the fact that, while they
have more money, they think differently, and different rules apply to them.
Addendum: The fact that an Alpha Chimp would act differently if someone else was the Alpha Chimp does not change the fact that
an Alpha Chimp has fundamentally different behavior than the rest of the group.
"Hemingway is responsible for a famous misquotation of Fitzgerald's. According to Hemingway, a conversation between him and
Fitzgerald went:
Fitzgerald: The rich are different than you and me. Hemingway: Yes, they have more money.
This never actually happened; it is a retelling of an actual encounter between Hemingway and Mary Colum, which went as follows:
Hemingway: I am getting to know the rich.
Colum: I think you'll find the only difference between the rich and other people is that the rich have more money."
Just want to point out that that quote of Hemingways wasn't about Fitzgerald and wasn't even by Hemingway. Anyway I was more
attacking the "rich have more money" thing than I was trying to defend Fitzgerald, but I feel Fitzgerald got the basic idea
right
Apparently Fitzgerald was referring specifically to the attitudes of those who are born rich, attitudes that Fitzgerald
thought remained unaltered by events, including the loss of economic status.
"They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations
and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are
better than we are. They are different."
Hemingway suggested that Fitzgerald had once been especially enamored of the rich, seeing them as a "special glamorous race"
but ultimately became disillusioned.
"He thought they were a special glamorous race and when he found they weren't it wrecked him as much as any other thing
that wrecked him."
The Justice Department and Hillary Clinton's legal team "negotiated" an agreement that blocked the
FBI from accessing emails on Clinton's homebrew server related to the Clinton Foundation,
according to a transcript
of recently released testimony from last summer by former FBI special
agent Peter Strzok.
Under questioning from Judiciary Committee General Counsel Zachary Somers, Strzok
acknowledged that Clinton's private personal email servers contained a mixture of emails related
to the Clinton Foundation, her work as secretary of state and other matters.
"Were you given access to [Clinton Foundation-related] emails as part of the investigation?"
Somers asked
"
We were not. We did not have access
," Strzok responded. "
My
recollection is that the access to those emails were based on consent that was negotiated
between the Department of Justice attorneys and counsel for Clinton
." -
Fox
News
Strzok added that "
a significant filter team
" was employed at the FBI to "work
through the various terms of the various consent agreements."
"According to the attorneys, we lacked probable cause to get a search warrant for those servers
and projected that either it would take a very long time and/or it would be impossible to get to
the point where we could obtain probable cause to get a warrant," said Strzok.
The foundation has long been accused of "pay-to-play" transactions, fueled by a report in the
IBTimes
that the
Clinton-led State Department authorized $151 billion in Pentagon-brokered deals to 16 countries
that donated to the Clinton Foundation - a
145% increase in completed sales to those
nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration.
Adding to speculation of malfeasance is the fact that
donor contributions to the Clinton
Foundation
dried up by approximately 90%
over a three-year period between
2014
and
2017
,
according to financial statements.
What's more, Bill Clinton reportedly received a
$1
million check
from Qatar - one of the countries which gained State Department clearance to buy
US weapons while Clinton was Secretary of State,
even as the department signaled them out
for a range of alleged ills,"
according to
IBTimes.
The Clinton Foundation
confirmed
it accepted
the money.
Then there was the
surely unrelated
$145
million
donated to the Foundation
from parties linked to the
Uranium One deal
prior to its approval through a
rubber-stamp
committee
.
"The committee almost never met, and when it deliberated it was usually at a fairly
low bureaucratic level," Richard Perle said. Perle, who has worked for the Reagan, Clinton and
both Bush administrations added, "
I think it's a bit of a joke.
" –
CBS
Later in his testimony last summer, Strzok said that agents were able to access "the
entire universe" of information on the servers by using search terms to probe their contents -
saying "we had it voluntarily."
"What's bizarre about this, is in any other situation, there's no possible way
they would allow the potential perpetrator to self-select what the FBI gets to see," said former
Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz - former chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee
until 2017 and current contributor to
Fox News
. "
The FBI should be the one to sort
through those emails -- not the Clinton attorneys.
"
Chaffetz suggested that the goal of the DOJ was to "make sure they hear no evil, see
no evil -- they had no interest in pursuing the truth."
"The Clinton Foundation isn't supposed to be communicating with the State Department
anyway," said Chaffetz. "The foundation -- with her name on it -- is not supposed to be
communicating with the senior officials at the State Department."
Republican-led concerns that the DOJ, under the Obama administration, was too cozy with the
Clinton team during the 2016 presidential campaign have grown louder in recent days. Earlier
this week,
Fox
News exclusively reviewed
an internal chart prepared by federal investigators working on the
so-called "Midyear Exam" probe into Clinton's emails. The chart contained the words "NOTE: DOJ
not willing to charge this" next to a key statute on the mishandling of classified information.
The notation appeared to contradict former FBI Director James Comey's repeated claims that
his team made its decision that Clinton should not face criminal charges independently.
But Strzok, in his closed-door interview, denied that the DOJ exercised undue influence over
the FBI, and insisted that lawyers at the DOJ were involved in an advisory capacity working with
agents. -
Fox
News
Strzok was fired from the FBI after months of intense scrutiny over anti-Trump text messages he
exchanged with his mistress - FBI lawyer Lisa Page. Both Strzok and Page were involved at the
highest levels of both the Clinton email investigation and the counterintelligence investigation on
President Trump and his 2016 campaign.
Investigators Ask Loretta Lynch: Why Didn't DOJ/FBI Give Trump A
Defensive Briefing If They Suspected Members of His Campaign Had
Ties to Russia?
Posted at 7:30 pm on March 14, 2019 by Elizabeth Vaughn
Although the transcripts from former Attorney General Loretta
Lynch's Testimony last year have not been released yet,
investigative reporter Sara Carter obtained a copy and said that
lawmakers had one question on their minds. If the DOJ and the FBI
were so worried that Trump's campaign had been penetrated by
Russians, why didn't anyone give him a defensive briefing which is
customary? Lynch's inability to answer this question spoke
volumes.
Defensive briefings are "often given to presidential
candidates, elected officials and even U.S. businesses that have
either been unwittingly approached by foreign actors attempting to
gain trust and befriend those in position of influence." A senior
former intelligence official told Carter that, "if the FBI or
intelligence agencies suspect foreign adversaries may be trying to
penetrate a presidential campaign, as those FBI and DOJ sources
suggested in testimony to lawmakers, it would then be required to
warn those affected." In 2008, for example, the FBI gave John
McCain a defensive briefing due to their concern over the Russian
connections of a member of his campaign. Why wasn't Trump offered
the same courtesy?
Carter's source added:
It is an essential task of the FBI and the intelligence
community to give a defensive briefing to a presidential candidate
when a foreign adversary is attempting to penetrate or make
contact with someone in the campaign. If the FBI and DOJ were so
concerned about Carter Page and (George) Papadopoulos why didn't
they brief Trump when he became a candidate? The fact that they
didn't is very revealing. If they gave a defensive briefing to the
Clinton campaign then I think we have the answer.
(It is unknown if the Clinton campaign received a briefing.)
Carter said that a comparison of the testimonies of DOJ
official Bruce Ohr, former FBI top lawyer James Baker and Lynch
show that all three spoke of their concern that Russians might be
penetrating Trump's campaign, yet no one offered a defensive
briefing.
In her testimony, Lynch admitted that top officials, including
James Comey, all talked about offering a defensive briefing, but
no one ever followed through.
But, then again, why brief a candidate when you're trying to
frame him instead?
look NOTHING happens in DC if not for political gain, including
actual law enforcement---exhibit A being the email server.
Does
indicting Hillary help Trump independent voters? Not so sure.
Seems like the OJ trial---who DOESN"T think she's guilty and like
AOC, every time she opens her trap, it helps Trump.
Perp walking the traitors (McCabe, Strzok, Page and the rest
the Hilter Youth)--huge benefits IMO. Remember, all the Dems
have steadfastly defended this cabal. Make them defend the
traitors.
Crime is a legal definition. This means that to commit big crime you make it legal. Or, you
can try to enhance your commercial business or money making organization by getting conduct
made into a crime that is competition to your activity, like is found in copyright law, and is
done by state governments that make gambling illegal but have state-run lotteries in which the
odds of winning are so remote they make the negative percentage in Las Vegas casino games look
like a paragon of virtue. This also means that the concept of a crime is created by a
government, even though it is commonly thought to be bad behavior (or a failure to act), as
described by social relations, culture, religion, and human biology (with murder opposed by the
instinctive act of self defense). Conduct that is said to be bad enough is defined as a crime
and involves the government using force directly against the actor at least in the form
initially of an arrest, possible imprisonment, or later if an order from a criminal court case
is not followed.
The ongoing jabbering in the mass media -- starting in November 2016 when Donald Trump
was elected president -- declared that all sorts of conduct was illegal, as a civil or criminal
case, or should be the subject of charges for impeachment. A lot of that talk can be described
as horse manure, but it has had a real effect on the public, which effect has been and is the
intent. It reached a fever pitch last week when Judge T.S. Ellis III, an American hero, in
a federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia, sentenced Paul Manafort in one of his two
criminal cases to 47 months in prison, which was noticeably below the "sentencing guidelines
range" of 235 to 293 months--
Television talkers expressed shock and dismay that Manafort received such a "low" sentence
below the guidelines and they look forward with glee to his second sentencing on 13 March,
beginning at 9:30 a.m., eastern time, in federal court in Washington DC, with Judge Amy Berman
Jackson presiding. Her rulings can be described as statistically matching to a degree those
requested by government prosecutors in cases brought by "special counsel" Robert Mueller, who
was tasked to investigate "interference" in the 2016 presidential election by the Russian
government, with attention to "collusion" by the Trump campaign, but mysteriously not involving
possible collusion with Russia by the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Just as important as the definition of a crime are the rules of procedure and evidence that
govern a criminal justice system from start to finish, such as: detaining and arresting a
person, questioning a suspect, confinement or release before a trial (if any), pretrial court
hearings, a trial itself by a jury or otherwise, any appeal of a trial's verdict, ordering a
sentence of punishment or a consequence to the finding of guilt, suspending a sentence through
probation, operating a prison, the power of a president or governor to pardon a person's
conviction or commute the sentence, and so forth.
This brings us to the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, a deceptive name if there ever was
one. They are part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (CCCA), disguised inside
House Joint Resolution 648, "A joint resolution making continuing appropriations for the fiscal
year 1985, and for other purposes", which became Public Law 98-473 and which president Ronald
Reagan signed on 12 October 1984. That legislation shifted the existing federal criminal law so
extensively that it can accurately be described as a radical change. Whether becoming a law in
1984 was a coincidence or an arrogant expression by implementing some of the meaning in George
Orwell's novel "Nineteen Eighty-four" (published in 1949) is not known.
The so-called guidelines came from the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, introduced by Senator
Edward Kennedy (Dem. Massachusetts), and they became part of the Comprehensive Crime Control
Act of 1984, which in turn was Title 2 of the continuing appropriations bill, Public Law
98-473. In the legislation, Congress created the United States Sentencing Commission, and it
would write the new sentencing rules, and federal judges would have to sentence someone within
the "guideline range" set by the commission. This smaller "guideline range" was within the
regular "range of punishment" set by Congress as a possible minimum to maximum sentence for
each particular crime Congress defined. Before the CCCA, if a defendant was found guilty, the
federal judge had the power and discretion to sentence the person to anything within the
regular range of punishment established by Congress, and order probation if allowed in that
instance. But the sentencing guidelines took that discretion away from the federal judge,
and required the sentence to be within the guideline range. The self-righteous language that
supposedly allowed a judge to "depart" from the guideline range in a certain way was laughable
as a practical matter.
When the sentencing guidelines became law, the sentencing commission magically was said to
become part of the judicial branch of government, where it resides today [1].
When the sentencing guidelines kicked in and became operational, a court challenge followed.
The case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, as United States v. Mistretta, 488 U.S. 361 (1989),
and even though at that time "liberals" such as Judges William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, and
John Paul Stevens were on the court, the decision was 8 to 1 that the guidelines were
constitutional, with the lone dissenter being none other than Antonin Scalia [2]. Sometimes
Judge Scalia would pull back covering language about an issue and shine a light on what was
really going on. He did so at the start of his dissent--
"While the products of the Sentencing Commission's labors have been given the modest name
'Guidelines,' see 28 U.S.C. 994(a)(1) (1982 ed., Supp. IV); United States Sentencing
Commission Guidelines Manual (June 15, 1988), they have the force and effect of laws,
prescribing the sentences criminal defendants are to receive. A judge who disregards them
will be reversed, 18 U.S.C. 3742 (1982 ed., Supp. IV). I dissent from today's decision
because I can find no place within our constitutional system for an agency created by
Congress to exercise no governmental power other than the making of laws."
As some sort of smiling rationale is always given for a new law or governmental action, the
sentencing guidelines were promoted as providing certainty and fairness in sentencing and
avoiding unwarranted disparities among defendants with similar records found guilty of similar
offenses. Never mind that the differences between individual human beings, their backgrounds,
and behavior are basically unlimited and disparate in reality. The existence of reality was not
part of the new game, and "disparity" was claimed to be a bad thing. Asserted to be just as bad
was the difference between federal judges and the sentences they imposed. Surprisingly, one of
the original members of the sentencing commission, Paul Robinson, objected to what was created
as a final product, and Judge Scalia quoted him--
" ' Under the guidelines, the judge could give the same sentence for abusive sexual
contact that puts the child in fear as for unlawfully entering or remaining in the United
States. Similarly, the guidelines permit equivalent sentences for the following pairs of
offenses: drug trafficking and a violation of the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act;
arson with a destructive device and failure to surrender a cancelled naturalization
certificate; operation of a common carrier under the influence of drugs that causes injury
and alteration of one motor vehicle identification number; illegal trafficking in explosives
and trespass; interference with a flight attendant and unlawful conduct relating to
contraband cigarettes; aggravated assault and smuggling $11,000 worth of fish.' Dissenting
View of Commissioner Paul H. Robinson on the Promulgation of the Sentencing Guidelines by the
United States Sentencing Commission 6-7 (May 1, 1987) (citations omitted)".
The point was and is that laws are to be made by Congress, and not from scratch by
delegating the power to a type of commission, which Judge Scalia called "a sort of
junior-varsity Congress". This context also raises thoughts about the separation of powers in
the structure of the federal government.
Sentencing in federal court became a process of assigning a certain number of points to
certain factors, and adding them up and subtracting some to reach a numerical score, and after
that looking at a grid and finding the pigeon hole telling you, and the handcuffed judge, what
the sentence within the new, smaller range of punishment could be. If you think that such a
process is surreal, it is. The sentencing scheme with its new commission became a sprawling
monster, not only in its text and procedures, but also in its expenditure of time and money and
court litigation, which continues to this day. Here is the current version of the sentencing
guidelines manual, in excess of 500 pages, which you can read if your stomach can stand
it--
After the guidelines became effective in 1987 and the Mistretta opinion was handed down in
1989, the problems generated by the new system became more and more obvious and acute. Despite
dissatisfaction expressed in the legal community, Congress did nothing, and it took 15 years
until 2004 for another case with some substance to be accepted by the Supreme Court for review,
called United States vs. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005). It produced an unusual decision
consisting of two separate majority opinions, with each one made up of a different group of
five judges, and several dissenting opinions [3].
One opinion ruled that two sections of the Sentencing Reform Act that made the guidelines
mandatory had to be severed and excised from that law because a conflict existed between facts
that might be found by a jury through a defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial, and
what could be done under the mandatory aspects of the sentencing guidelines. Invalidating the
two sections made the guidelines effectively advisory , but the "[federal] district courts,
while not bound to apply the Guidelines, must consult those Guidelines and take them into
account when sentencing", and the "courts of appeals review sentencing decisions for
unreasonableness" (see pages 246-267, pdf pages 448-469). The supreme court did not have the
intestinal fortitude to strike down the entire sentencing guidelines regime, and instead wrote
around the problems, split hairs, and kept the system mostly in place, requiring the trial
judge to still consider the "numerous factors that guide sentencing", and a court of appeals
can review the judge's sentence and decide whether it is "unreasonable".
Judge Stephen Breyer is the author of that particular majority opinion in the Booker case
that kept the guidelines mostly in place; Supreme Court Judge John Paul Stevens wrote the other
majority opinion. One of the original members of the U.S. Sentencing Commission from 1985-1989
was a judge on the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals named Stephen Breyer, who was on that
court from 1980-1994. He was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court by president Bill Clinton and
took his seat on 3 August 1994.
The world is indeed small, for in the Booker case before the supreme court in 2004, two
lawyers involved in writing the brief (the written argument) for the Justice Department to
support the guidelines were Christopher Wray, now the FBI Director, and Michael Drebeen, who
has been in the Solicitor General's office in the Justice Department and who has been working
at least part time since 2017 for -- you guessed it -- special counsel Robert Mueller [4]. In
this New York Times newspaper story from 6 June 2017 about Christopher Wray being nominated to
be FBI Director, at the beginning of the story is a photograph from February 2004 of three men
standing together -- James Comey (the Deputy Attorney General), Robert Mueller (FBI Director),
and Christopher Wray (Chief of the Criminal Division in the Justice Department) [5]. To
slightly modify the immortal words of comedian George Carlin, "It's a small club, and you're
not in it".
The growing mutation of the sentencing system continues, with endless quibbling among
lawyers in court, judges, and the sentencing commission through litigation over detailed
bureaucratic parts of the guidelines attempting to identify and pull under control every
conceivable variation of a person, the person's conduct, and different factors that might be
considered in a sentence, and assign a number to it, ultimately producing your guideline and
criminal history levels. The sentencing commission has published a selected annotation of 85
supreme court cases from the Mistretta decision in 1989 to one from 2018, with a brief
discussion of each opinion [6].
You can now see and understand the real reason for the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the
carefully crafted system of assigning numbers to points and designing strict categories to
include and control every possible factor about ordering a sentence for a crime.
This system removes the sentencing power and discretion from the courts and judges in the
judicial branch and gives them to the prosecuting attorneys in the executive branch, through
the Department of Justice and the offices of U.S. Attorneys. It has been and is a clever and
diabolical transfer to the prosecuting authority of one of the most important functions in a
criminal justice system: the sentencing punishment or consequence given to a defendant.
I, the federal prosecutor, will decide what your sentence will be by the offenses I decide
to charge you with. All I have to do is get a guilty verdict from a jury trial or from a trial
to the judge if you agree to have a judge alone hear and decide the trial. Or obtain a guilty
plea from you to a charge and on terms that I agree to, whether that guilty plea results from
your objective decision about your conduct, or whether you are coerced into pleading guilty by
the sheer number of charges with possible sentences I have filed against you, or you plead
guilty because you have run out of money and cannot afford a trial, or I threaten to charge
your wife or family members also if you do not plead guilty to what I agree you can plead to.
The judge is so constrained and limited by the sentencing guideline scheme that I am not
worried at all about the sentence you will get; I have no downside risk there.
The presentence investigation report (PSI) about Paul Manafort from the federal probation
office was filed on 6 March and is not publicly available, as is standard practice. Manafort's
sentencing hearing on 13 March is taking on the aura of a spectacle, boosted by the
government's allegation that he violated the terms of his plea agreement, and after the
courageous departure downward from the sentencing guidelines by Judge T.S. Ellis III last week.
Whether Judge Ellis's sentence may be the subject of review by appeal is another dense
issue.
Meanwhile, in the pending case of Gen. Michael Flynn (ret.), a status report by the lawyers
was filed on 12 March. It requested that his sentencing hearing be rescheduled--
Politicians, the press, and candidates announcing a year before the presidential primaries
begin are blathering on clownlike about who has verbally offended whom, which newly invented
group should have new "rights", whether someone is cis-gender, whether the president had sexual
contact with a floozy pornographic movie performer and whether a legal payment to her to keep
it confidential violated campaign finance laws (it did not), and on and on.
All the while, they are blithely unaware that playing out right in front of their faces is a
radical transformation of federal criminal law, consolidating the ultimate governmental power
in the branch that executes the police power, while federal judges with a lifetime appointment
and all office facilities and perks paid for by taxpayers, dither and refuse to honestly
describe and resist what has been happening. All federal judges except for two. One, Antonin
Scalia, left this world in 2016, but was the only one on the supreme court standing against the
slick usurpation of the democratic process and sentencing discretion. The other one, T.S. Ellis
III, is still with us, and he not only understands what the sentencing guidelines really are,
but he also assessed a sentence as it used to be done, without the double meaning of 1984.
[2] The official version of a Supreme Court opinion is in a book called the United States
Reports. The Supreme Court has a digital version of its opinions in the pdf computer format
going back only to volume 509, and the Mistretta opinion is in volume 488. Other internet
websites have reproduced the opinion.
[3] The supreme court opinion is in a bound volume on the court's website, but I do not have
the software at hand to pull it out as a separate document. The full volume of 1,259 pages in
the pdf computer format is 3.9 megabytes in size and can be viewed or downloaded. The Booker
opinion is on pdf pages 422 to 536, and on book pages 220 to 334.
Thank you Robert for the education. Most people, even educated ones don't grasp the scale,
scope and intricacies of our governmental apparatus. I know the more I learn, the more I
become convinced we have a leviathan that is manipulated, twisted, overly complex and one
that is working only for the ruling elites. We have to cut this behemoth down to size. And
follow Taleb's maxims of "Skin in the Game" and "Anti-fragile" meaning simplicity.
"The point was and is that laws are to be made by Congress, and not from
scratch by delegating the power to a type of commission, which Judge
Scalia called 'a sort of junior-varsity Congress' ". Such as the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau.
Pedophilia has come up in the mainstream a lot lately, as PizzaGate came to light fairly recently and more and more pedophile
rings are being exposed, some of which have involved government officials.
If you're unfamiliar with PizzaGate, it refers to a wide range of email correspondence leaked from the DNC that allegedly unearthed
a high-level elitist global pedophile ring in which the U.S. government was involved.
It emerged when Wikileaks released tens of thousands of emails from the former White House Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton,
John Podesta, who also served as Hillary Clinton's campaign manager. It's because of these emails that many claimed John Podesta
was a part of these child trafficking rings as well.
Since then, conspiracy theorists and world renowned journalists alike have been looking into the topic and speculating how big
this problem could be and who could be involved within these underground rings.
For example, award winning American journalist Ben Swann explained the Pizzagate controversy in detail on mainstream news:
Not long after, Swann's entire online personal brand and accounts had all but vanished from the
internet. Why?
More recently, there's been some speculation that these pedophile rings could stretch into pop culture, potentially involving
more pedophilia scandals and symbolism within the media. The question here is: Is there any tangible evidence of all of this, or
is it mere speculation?
Pedophilia Symbolism
I'd like to begin by identifying the symbols that are used by pedophiles to identify themselves and make their requests within
underground networks. Here is a link
to a declassified FBI document illustrating the symbols and images used by pedophiles to "identify their sexual preferences."
So, how do these images relate to pizza? First of all, before PizzaGate was even suggested, "cheese pizza" was used as
a code word to discuss "child porn" (hint: it's the same initials, CP). A quick Google search will reveal that the market for underage
sex workers is fairly substantial, and you can even see a 2015 post on
Urban Dictionary that explains
how "cheese pizza" is used as code for child porn.
As per PizzaGate and the symbolism, it all started when multiple emails involving John Podesta, his brother, and Hillary Clinton
simply didn't add up. Strange wording discussing pizza and cheese left readers confused, and because the emails made so little sense,
it led many to suspect that they were code for something else.
For example, this email addressed to John Podesta
reads: "The realtor found a handkerchief (I think it has a map that seems pizza-related)," and
this email sent from John Podesta asks: "Do you
think I'll do better playing dominos on cheese than on pasta?" There are many more examples, and I encourage you to go through
the Wikileaks vault to explore.
On top of that, the DNC was associated with two pizza places, Comet Ping Pong and Besta Pizza, which use very clear symbols of
pedophilia in their advertising and have strange images of children and other ritualistic type images and suspicious videos on their
social media accounts – which has since been made private given the controversy over the images and their link to the DNC, but again,
a quick Google search will show you what those images looked like. You can read the email correspondence between John Podesta and
Comet Ping Pong's owner, James Alefantis,
here .
Looks like Orr was one of the central figures of the conspiracy against Trump in Justice Department. And it was Orr wife
who probably had written parts of the dossier at the request of CIA Brennan and other conspirators in CIA (who were acting via
controlled by them counterintelligence division at FBI)
Notable quotes:
"... Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years. ..."
"... Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election. ..."
"... Ohr informed FBI and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history. ..."
"... What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. ..."
"... This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to his Agent/handler. Period. ..."
"... One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes (i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies. ..."
"... In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump. ..."
"... As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen, Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions. ..."
Sorry to have been out of pocket (I've fled the wintry north for a new home in Florida). I
am back, so to speak, and ready to write a bit. Last week's release by Congressman Collins of
the interview transcript of Bruce Ohr, who appeared before the House Judiciary Committee last
year is quite damning of the FBI and the DOJ. If our system of justice is truly blind and
committed to fairness, there is little doubt that former FBI and DOJ officials--Comey, McCabe,
Yates and Rosenstein--will be facing serious legal jeopardy. They have lied.
The biggest "revelations" from Ohr are as follows:
Christopher Steele, a "former" MI-6 officer, had been a paid FBI informant for several years.
Bruce Ohr met with Glenn Simpson in August 2016, which totally contradicts Simpson's previous
sworn testimony that he did not meet with Ohr until after the 2016 election.
Ohr informed FBI
and senior DOJ officials, who signed off on the FISA application in October 2016 to spy on
Carter Page, that the "dossier" had a tainted political history.
I put "revelations" in quotations because we already knew most of this--specifically
Steele's status as a paid informant and the failure of the FBI and DOJ to verify the accuracy
of the so-called dossier. The new meat on the bone is Ohr's claim that he met with Simpson in
August 2016. Simpson swore under oath that no such meeting took place. That's a substantive lie
and, if the Flynn case is a guide, Mr. Simpson will be looking at prison.
What is truly remarkable about Ohr's testimony is that his explanation for repeated meetings
and contacts with Christopher Steele do not make sense. I am referring specifically to Ohr's
claim that Steele wanted him, Ohr, to pass info to the FBI. Think about this for a moment--Ohr
knows that Steele is a paid FBI informant. That means Steele has an FBI agent who is his
conduit into the FBI. That Agent handles interviews and writes up reports. Why in the hell
would Steele approach Ohr and not his FBI handler? Because Steele did not want to create a
record, i.e., a 302, that would have been generated if he had followed protocol and gone thru
normal channels.
And Ohr? This guy is a senior DOJ official. He is a former prosecutor. He knows that the
minute he accepts anything from Steele and then passes it on to the FBI that he, Ohr, became a
fact witness. He is part of the chain of custody. More importantly, Ohr, knowing that Steele is
on the FBI payroll, should have refused to accept any information and direct Steele to talk to
his Agent/handler. Period.
One other important sidetone--there has been a longstanding agreement among the 5 Eyes
(i.e., US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand) to NOT recruit as assets each other's spies.
Christopher Steele's employ with the FBI violates this policy.
In light of all of this one can only conclude that Bruce Ohr is lying about the real reason
for meeting with Steele or that he is a complete moron. There is no other possible explanation
or excuse. I do not think that Ohr is a moron. He does not strike me as a man of limited
intelligence. I think he is lying. I believe that the reason Steele approached Ohr was to
provide some insulation to the FBI, which was engaged in an act of sedition. The FBI was
interfering in the 2016 election and working to destroy Donald Trump.
As more transcripts and documents come into the sunlight, we will get a clearer picture of
the corruption at both the FBI and the DOJ. The FISA applications to spy on a US citizen,
Carter Page, are without foundation. I am sure that William Barr appreciates this point and
will press for action against those who willingly engaged in such despicable actions.
"For more than two years, the United States and the world have had two competing narratives:
that an elected president of the United States was a Russian agent whom the Kremlin helped
elect; and its rival narrative that senior officials of the Justice Department, FBI, CIA, and
other national intelligence organizations had repeatedly lied under oath, misinformed federal
officials, and meddled in partisan political matters illegally and unconstitutionally and had
effectively tried to influence the outcome of a presidential election, and then undo its result
by falsely propagating the first narrative. It is now obvious and indisputable that the
second narrative is the correct one.
The authors, accomplices, and dupes of this attempted overthrow of constitutional government
are now well along in reciting their misconduct without embarrassment or remorse because -- in
fired FBI Director James Comey's formulation -- a "higher duty" than the oath they swore to
uphold the Constitution compelled them.
Or -- in fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's
words -- "the threat" was too great. Nevermind that the nature of "the threat" was that the
people might elect someone he and Comey disapproved of as president, and that that person might
actually serve his term, as elected." Black
----------
Baron Black of Crossharbour, is an interesting fellow. In this piece he (or someone) makes
the case for the reality of the "soft coup" that the Borg (foreign policy establishment) and
the Deep State mandarins (SES ers) scattered across the Executive Branch undertook and for
which they only now are being driven back into their dens. Black reminds me of Lord
Beaverbrook, another Canadian who was a member of the War Cabinet in WW2?
The caste of US general and admirals are not I think part of the coup plot. They have their
own game as a group and it is not a neocon game except for a few outliers like Jack Keane, a
priest of the neocon cult.
Nevertheless, IMO Black is wrong when he thinks that the present situation is the worst
constitutional crisis since the outbreak of the WBS. No, IMO, this is far worse than that. It
is the worst ever. In 1860 the seceding states did not seek to overthrow Lincoln, the legally
elected president of the US, even though he had been elected by a plurality in the popular vote
and not a single electoral vote from the South. They simply wished to depart what they saw as a
voluntary union of the states.
In this case the forces arrayed against Trump wish to overthrow the constitutional order.
That is much worse. pl
Unfortunately nothing will happen to these people.
No one will be charged, much less tried..
The swamp is above the law - "laws are for little people."
We are not governed, we are ruled.
The Donald has been on a red hot twitter rampage, and he's completely justified. Actually,
we didn't think the Russian Collusion Hoax could get any stupider until we saw the New York
Times' Friday evening bushwhack. ...
And for lots of his columns, see
his archive at antiwar.com . There you will find not only the titles of his articles, but
also short summaries.
Interesting (actually quite disappointing) how little he is quoted in the MSM. What an
echo chamber it is!
CREATION OF CONTROL FILES TRANSFERRED FROM FBI TO NSA
"But by then, it was already too late. The FBI's surveillance was messy and involved too many agents who could potentially
blow the whistle. In the wake of 9/11, the internal surveillance program was shifted from the Bureau to the NSA, and it was not
long before those surveillance powers were being directed against politicians and officials in yet another attempt to gather dirt
and find blackmail-worthy material on these individuals.
As NSA whistleblower Russell Tice told The Corbett Report in 2013, he had first-hand knowledge of this surveillance, which
included politicians, judges, military personnel, and even the future President of the United States.
In short, this scandal is too deep, too dark, and covers too many people from both sides of the political aisle for it to ever
proceed in public. If it were to be exposed it would uncover a tale of surveillance, scandal, drug money, child prostitution and
blackmail that could blow up all over Washington and make Watergate look like a minor footnote in the history of political scandal."
"In 2002 Gilbert Graham, a Special Agent in the Washington Field Office of the FBI, blew the whistle on an illegal surveillance
program being conducted out of the Bureau's Washington headquarters. According to the unclassified version of his complaint, obtained
by the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition in 2007, Graham alleged violations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillence
Act "in conducting electronic surveillance as a subterfuge to acquire evidence of criminal activity."
These allegations were backed up by a former FBI Counterintelligence Specialist in the Washington Field Office, who told the
National Security Whistleblowers Coalition: " you are looking at covering up massive public corruption and espionage cases; to
top that off you have major violations of FISA by the FBI Washington Field Office and HQ targeting these cases. Everyone involved
has motive to cover up these reports and prevent investigation and public disclosure."
According to FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, revealing the details of this program for the first time in a series of podcasts
in the wake of the Hastert revelations, this illegal surveillance program -- dubbed COINTELPRO II by the agents who were asked
to implement it -- dates back to the mid-1990s, when the Clinton White House was being rocked by a series of sex scandals."
When CIA does not want that FBI does not prosecute somebody they usually have their way.
Robert Mueller is not only about Trump, he is also about scrubbing all the crimes committed by Clintons and Obama. That's
a lot of crimes.
Notable quotes:
"... I think ultimately, the coverup of Clinton's emails was not to protect Clinton but to protect Obama, as he had communicated with her on the server ..."
The FBI's top lawyer, General Counsel James Baker, initially thought that Hillary Clinton should face criminal charges for transmitting
classified information over her insecure, private email server, according to transcripts from a 2018 closed-door Congressional testimony
reviewed by
The Hill 's John Solomon.
While being questioned by Rep. John Radcliffe (R-TX), Baker was clear that he thought Clinton should face criminal charges.
"I have reason to believe that you originally believed it was appropriate to charge Hillary Clinton with regard to violations
of law - various laws, with regard to mishandling of classified information. Is that accurate?" asked Ratcliffe, a former federal
prosecutor.
After a brief pause to consult with his attorney, Baker responded: "Yes."
Baker later explained how he arrived at his conclusion, and how he was "persuaded" to change his mind.
"So, I had that belief initially after reviewing, you know, a large binder of her emails that had classified information in them,"
said Baker. "And I discussed it internally with a number of different folks, and eventually became persuaded that charging her was
not appropriate because we could not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that - we, the government, could not establish beyond a
reasonable doubt that - she had the intent necessary to violate (the law). "
Baker says he was persuaded to change his mind "pretty late in the process, because we were arguing about it, I think, up until
the end. "
Recall that in December, 2017 we learned that James Comey's original exoneration letter was drafted in a way that would have required
criminal charges - changing Clinton's conduct from the legally significant "gross negligence" to "extremely careless" - which is
not a legal term of art. This language - along with
several other incriminating components was altered by former FBI counterintelligence agent and attorney, Peter Strzok.
Baker made clear that he did not like the activity Clinton had engaged in: "My original belief after - well, after having conducted
the investigation and towards the end of it, then sitting down and reading a binder of her materials - I thought that it was alarming,
appalling, whatever words I said, and argued with others about why they thought she shouldn't be charged. "
His boss, Comey, announced on July 5, 2016, that he would not recommend criminal charges. He did so without consulting the
Department of Justice, a decision the department's inspector general (IG)
later concluded was misguided
and likely usurped the power of the attorney general to make prosecutorial decisions. Comey has said, in retrospect, he accepts
that finding but took the actions he did because he thought "they were in the country's best interest." -
The Hill
Baker noted that had he been more convinced that there was evidence that Clinton intended to violate the law, "I would have argued
that vociferously with him [Comey] and maybe changed his view."
Comey made this announcement before election day 2016. We knew this excuse was obstruction of justice.
They wanted to see if the public would stand for it, which they did. Most democrats are fine with a seditious, treasonous felon
being president.
A lot of Republicans are cool with it too, so long as they get their brand in there for Federal Pork.
Navy62802 28 minutes ago
I think ultimately, the coverup of Clinton's emails was not to protect Clinton but to protect Obama, as he had
communicated with her on the server (even using an alias email, himself) even though he claimed to have learned of the
server when everyone else did ... an obvious lie. So in order to avoid being a co-conspirator with someone violating the
Espionage Act, Baker was "persuaded" not to charge Clinton.
"... Baker said McCabe was cool, calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time." ..."
"... According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity and about his intent at that point in time." ..."
Two Trump Cabinet officials were "ready to support" a DOJ scheme to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove President Trump , according
to
Bloomberg and
Fox News , citing closed-door testimony from the FBI's former top lawyer, James Baker - who said that the claim came from Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The testimony was delivered last fall to the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees. Fox News has confirmed portions of the
transcript. It provides additional insight into discussions that have returned to the spotlight in Washington as fired FBI Deputy
Director Andrew McCabe revisits the matter during interviews promoting his forthcoming book. -
Fox News
While Baker did not identify the two Cabinet officials, he says that McCabe and former FBI lawyer Lisa Page approached him to
relay their conversations with Rosenstein, including their discussions of the 25th Amendment scheme. "I was being told by some combination
of Andy McCabe and Lisa Page, that, in a conversation with the Deputy Attorney General, he had stated that he -- this was what was
related to me -- that he had at least two members of the president's Cabinet who were ready to support, I guess you would call it,
an action under the 25th Amendment," Baker told the Congressional committees.
The 25th Amendment allows for the removal of a sitting president from office through various mechanisms - including the majority
of a president's Cabinet agreeing that the commander-in-chief is incapable of performing his duties.
Rosenstein - who is slated to leave the Justice Department in the near future, has denied the claims. Baker said McCabe was cool,
calm and collected throughout the discussions, telling lawmakers: "At this point in time, Andy was unbelievably focused and unbelievably
confident and squared away. I don't know how to describe it other than I was extremely proud to be around him at that point in time
because I thought he was doing an excellent job at maintaining focus and dealing with a very uncertain and difficult situation. So
I think he was in a good state of mind at this point in time."
McCabe, meanwhile
told "60 Minutes" in an interview set to air Sunday night that Rosenstein was concerned about Trump's "capacity."
According to McCabe, Rosenstein "raised the issue and discussed it with me in the context of thinking about how many other cabinet
officials might support such an effort," adding that Rosenstein was "definitely very concerned about the president, about his capacity
and about his intent at that point in time."
"Rosenstein was actually openly talking about whether there was a majority of the cabinet who would vote to remove the president?"
asks CBS News anchor Scott Pelly, to which McCabe replied: " That's correct. Counting votes or possible votes. "
The New York Times
first reported
last year that McCabe alleged in memos that Rosenstein had talked about using the 25th Amendment to oust Trump -- or wearing a
wire to surreptitiously monitor the president -- in the hectic days in May 2017 after Trump fired James B. Comey as FBI director.
At the time, Rosenstein disputed the reporting. -
WaPo
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called the 25th Amendment scheme a "
bureaucratic coup " led by enemies of President Trump. On Sunday morning, Graham said he would subpoena McCabe and Rosenstein
"if that's what it takes" to get to the bottom of the 25th Amendment claim.
On Thursday, the DOJ issued a statement claiming that Rosenstein rejects McCabe's version of events "as inaccurate and factually
incorrect," and also denied that Rosenstein ever approved wearing a "wire" to record Trump.
"The deputy attorney general never authorized any recording that Mr. McCabe references," reads the DOJ statement. "As the deputy
attorney general previously has stated, based on his personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment,
nor was the DAG in a position to consider invoking the 25th Amendment."
McCabe, meanwhile, walked back some of his "60 Minutes" statements . On Friday a spokeswoman for the former Deputy Director said:
"Certain statements made by Mr. McCabe, in interviews associated with the release of his book, have been taken out of context and
misrepresented," adding "To clarify, at no time did Mr. McCabe participate in any extended discussions about the use of the 25th
Amendment, nor is he aware of any such discussions."
Baker acknowledged during his testimony that he was not directly involved in the May 2017 discussions, rather, McCabe and Page
approached him contemporaneously following a meeting with Rosenstein in the days following former FBI Director James Comey's firing.
"I had the impression that the deputy attorney general had already discussed this with two members in the president's Cabinet
and that they were onboard with this concept already," said Baker.
Question: "Do you know what direction that went? Was it Mr. Rosenstein seeking out members of the Cabinet looking to pursue
this 25th Amendment approach or was it the other way around?"
Baker: "What I recall being said was that the Deputy Attorney General had two members of the Cabinet. So he – how they came
to be had, I don't know, but "
Question: "So he had two members, almost like he was taking the initiative and getting the members?"
Baker: "That would be speculation on my part." -
Via Fox News
Baker also suggested that "Lisa and Andy" did not know the names of the Cabinet officials who were on board with the 25th Amendment
scheme.
Baker testified in October that the alleged discussions took place during an uncertain and anxious time at the FBI and DOJ
after Comey's termination, and that the mood was "pretty dark":
Question: "Did people tell you that the DAG (Deputy Attorney General) was upset?"
Baker: "Yes."
Question: "Did they tell you that he was making jokes?"
Baker: "No."
Question: "Did they tell you that..."
Baker: " This was not a joking sort of time. This was pretty dark. " -
Via Fox News
"Our choice now seems to be between a "new war" and a new world. As always, the forces of reaction and wealth are telling us
we have no choice but war, and no right or power to decide. They are calling for a secret investigation, a secret conviction,
a secret method of execution, and a totally secret war abroad.
"The American people as a whole are the only ones in the world who have the right to decide on a national response to this
tragedy, and it must be one that takes into account the rights of all the other peoples and nations of the world."
"... In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well. ..."
In interviews to boost his forthcoming book, fired former FBI
Acting Director Andrew McCabe confirms that Obama holdovers repeatedly discussed removing
President Donald Trump under the pretext of the 25th Amendment, and that Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein more than once seriously offered to "wear a wire" in meetings with the
President. After Trump fired James Comey as FBI Director in May 2017, McCabe, Comey's deputy
director, launched a phony "obstruction of justice" investigation, and said that he began to
accumulate files of memos on that and the "Russia Collusion" investigation, to try to ensure
that the investigations would continue if he were fired as well.
Now, after its own two years of investigation and 200 interviews, Chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee Richard Burr (R-NC) has said, "There is no factual evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign and Russia." Ranking Member Mark Warner (D-VA) said he disagrees
with the way Burr characterized the evidence, but declined to give his own assessment.
Veteran criminal attorney John Dowd, a member of Trump's legal team from June 2017 to March
2018, said,
"I know exactly what he [Mueller] has. I know exactly what every witness said, what every
document said. I know exactly what he asked. And I know what the conclusion or the result
is."
What will be the result of the probe?
"It's been a terrible waste of time.... This is one of the greatest frauds the country has
ever seen. I'm just shocked that Bob Mueller didn't call it that way and say, 'I'm being
used.' I would've done that.
"I'd have gone to [then Attorney General] Sessions and Rosenstein and said, 'Look. This is
nonsense. We are being used by a cabal in the FBI to get even.' "
Asked about Mueller's final report, he responded, "I will be shocked if anything regarding
the President is made public, other than, 'We're done.' "
At the same time, former NSA Technical Director William Binney has published new evidence
which shows that the DNC documents posted by WikiLeaks in July 2016, were probably not hacked
over the internet, by Russians or anyone else -- rather, the only available forensic evidence
indicates that they were downloaded from within the DNC's network. His evidence is summarized
in an article he co-authored with former CIA analyst Larry Johnson on Col. Pat Lang's "Sic
Semper Tyrannis" blog yesterday.
"... Neither these talking points nor the chart of potential violations committed by Clinton and her associates have been released. ..."
"... Rybicki writes: By NLT [no later than] next Monday, the Director would like to see a list of all cases charged in the last 20 years where the gravamen of the charge was mishandling classified information. It should be in chart form with: (1) case name, (2) a short summary for content (3) charges brought, and (4) charge of conviction. ..."
"... According to a December, 2017 letter from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) to FBI Director Christopher Wray, fired FBI agent Peter Strzok changed the language regarding Clinton's conduct from the criminal charge of "gross negligence" to "extremely careless." ..."
"... "Gross negligence" is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with recklessness. According to Black's Law Dictionary, gross negligence is " A severe degree of negligence taken as reckless disregard ," and " Blatant indifference to one's legal duty, other's safety, or their rights ." "Extremely careless," on the other hand, is not a legal term of art. ..."
"... 18 U.S. Code § 793 "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information" specifically uses the phrase "gross negligence." Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary had broken the law. ..."
"... And now, thanks to the Judicial Watch FOIA, we know that the FBI also went to great lengths to justify letting Clinton off the hook with a "chart" of her offenses. ..."
FOIA Docs Reveal Obama FBI Covered Up "Chart" Of Potential Hillary Clinton Crimes
by Tyler Durden
Fri, 02/15/2019 - 17:30 1.7K SHARES
The top brass of the Obama FBI went to great lengths to justify their decision not to
recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified
information, according to Judicial Watch , which obtained evidence that the agency created a
'chart' of Clinton's offenses.
The newly obtained emails came in response to a court ordered Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) request that the DOJ had previously ignored.
Three days after then-FBI Director James Comey's press conference announcing that he
would not recommend a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton, a July 8, 2016 email
chain shows that, the Special Counsel to the FBI's executive assistant director in charge
of the National Security Branch, whose name is redacted, wrote to Strzok and others that he
was producing a "chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation [of
Clinton's server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute "
[Redacted] writes : I am still working on an additional page for these TPs that consist of a
chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation , and the reasons for the
recommendation not to prosecute, hopefully in non-lawyer friendly terms
Strzok forwards to Page,
Jonathan Moffa and others : I have redlined some points. Broadly, I have some concerns
about asking some our [sic] senior field folks to get into the business of briefing this case,
particularly when we have the D's [Comey's] statement as a kind of stand alone document. In my
opinion, there's too much nuance, detail, and potential for missteps. But I get they may likely
be asked for comment.
[Redacted] writes to Strzok, Page and others : The DD [Andrew McCabe] will need to approve
these before they are pushed out to anyone. At the end of last week, he wasn't inclined to send
them to anyone. But, it's great to have them on the shelf in case they're needed.
[Redacted] writes to Strzok and Page : I'm really not sure why they continued working on
these [talking points]. In the morning, I'll make sure Andy [McCabe] tells Mike [Kortan] to
keep these in his pocket. I guess Andy just didn't ever have a moment to turn these off with
Mike like he said he would.
Page replies : Yes, agree that this is not a good idea.
Neither these talking points nor the chart of potential violations committed by Clinton and
her associates have been released.
On May 15, 2016,
James Rybicki , former chief of staff to Comey, sends FBI General Counsel James Baker;
Bill Priestap , former assistant director of the FBI's counterintelligence division;
McCabe; Page; and others an
email with the subject line "Request from the Director."
Rybicki writes: By NLT [no later than] next Monday, the Director would like to see a list of
all cases charged in the last 20 years where the gravamen of the charge was mishandling
classified information. It should be in chart form with: (1) case name, (2) a short summary for content (3) charges
brought, and (4) charge of conviction.
If need be, we can get it from NSD [National Security Division] and let them know that the
Director asked for this personally.
Please let me know who can take the lead on this.
Thanks!
Jim
Page forwards to Strzok : FYSA [For your situational awareness]
Strzok replies to Page : I'll take the lead, of course – sounds like an espionage
section question Or do you think OGC [Office of the General Counsel] should?
And the more reason for us to get feedback to Rybicki, as we all identified this as an
issue/question over a week ago.
Page replies : I was going to reply to Jim [Rybicki] and tell him I can talked [sic] to you
about this already. Do you want me to?
***
Recall that the FBI agents involved made
extensive edits to former FBI Diretor James Comey's statement exonerating Hillary Clinton -
changing the language to effectively downgrade the crime of mishandling classified information
so that they could recommend no charges.
According to a December, 2017 letter from Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-WI) to FBI Director Christopher Wray, fired FBI agent Peter
Strzok changed the language regarding Clinton's conduct from the criminal charge of "gross
negligence" to "extremely careless."
"Gross negligence" is a legal term of art in criminal law often associated with
recklessness. According to Black's Law Dictionary, gross negligence is " A severe degree of
negligence taken as reckless disregard ," and " Blatant indifference to one's legal duty,
other's safety, or their rights ." "Extremely careless," on the other hand, is not a legal term
of art.
According to an Attorney briefed on the matter, "extremely careless" is in fact a defense to
"gross negligence": "What my client did was 'careless', maybe even 'extremely careless,' but it
was not 'gross negligence' your honor." The FBI would have no option but to recommend
prosecution if the phrase "gross negligence" had been left in.
18 U.S. Code §
793 "Gathering, transmitting or losing defense information" specifically uses the phrase
"gross negligence." Had Comey used the phrase, he would have essentially declared that Hillary
had broken the law.
And now, thanks to the Judicial Watch FOIA, we know that the FBI also went to great lengths
to justify letting Clinton off the hook with a "chart" of her offenses.
The real problem here is that once faith in government is destroyed by the very agencies
we would hope to be honest to the end, the end of that government is at hand and all Hell is
about to break loose. Hold on tight to your Constitution and all the Amendments for tyranny
is at our doorsteps.
The FBI and DOJ, the NSA and CIA are infiltrated and infested with Anti-American
anti-patriots who think that their job is to protect a ideological faction supporting
globalism and neoliberalism.
These are the rotting fruits of 60 years of Socialist/Communist/Cultural Marxist
indoctrination at the level of public education and University level academia.
We have to face this now. The problem is massively bigger than McCabe or Comey or Brennan
or their low-level flunkies.
It is unclear how long this vulnerability exists, but this is pretty serious staff that shows
how Hillary server could be hacked via Abedin account. As Abedin technical level was lower then
zero, to hack into her home laptop just just trivial.
Microsoft also patched
Exchange against a vulnerability that allowed remote attackers with little more than an
unprivileged mailbox account to gain administrative control over the server. Dubbed
PrivExchange, CVE-2019-0686 was publicly disclosed last month , along with
proof-of-concept code that exploited it. In Tuesday's
advisory , Microsoft officials said they haven't seen active exploits yet but that they
were "likely."
by Tyler Durden
Wed, 02/06/2019 - 19:44 251 SHARES
Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced New York financier who served 13 months in prison for
soliciting an underaged girl for prostitution, has served his time, and despite all of the
negative press surrounding his "Lolita Express" and the many celebrities and politicians -
including former
President Bill Clinton and disgraced actor Kevin Spacey - who have reportedly traveled to
his "orgy island", he will likely live out his life as a free man (unless new offenses are
committed).
But thanks to a series published by the Miami Herald last year that
delved into how prosecutors worked with powerful defense attorneys to ensure Epstein received
such a lenient sentence. The expose shed a light on the role played by Alex Acosta, who went on
to become Trump's Secretary of Labour, in handing down the light sentence. Acosta was the US
Attorney for the Southern District of Florida at the time Epstein's sentence was handed
down.
Now, thanks to those stories, the DOJ has reportedly opened an investigation into the
conduct of DOJ attorneys in the case, and whether they committed "professional misconduct" in
their working relationship with Epstein's attorneys.
The probe was opened in response to a request lodged by Sen. Ben Sasse, a a Nebraska
Republican and member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who raised questions about the case
after reading the Herald's stories about how Acosta and other DOJ attorneys worked with defense
attorneys to cut a lenient plea deal for Epstein back in 2008, per the Herald.
At the time, the FBI was run by Robert Mueller.
Though the reasons for the lenient deal could be rooted in the natural advantages of the
wealthy, one Twitter user who did a deep dive into a cache of redacted FBI Vault documents
released last year raised the possibility that Epstein could have been an informant for the
FBI, providing information on executives from failed investment bank Bear Stearns in exchange
for the lenient sentence (though there's nothing in his guilty plea that suggested he provided
information).
To be sure, records show that Epstein passed a polygraph test showing that he didn't know
any of the girls he solicited were under the age of 18 at the time. Also, the case has taken on
renewed importance since opposition research shops
tried to link President Trump to Epstein during the campaign.
While that hasn't been conclusively proven, it could have been part of a separate agreement
that has yet to be disclosed.
It is very sad that FBI has decided to just prosecute this EVIL MAN and Child Pedophilia
enabler, just because Muller is investigating Trump. They are all in on it. They are
sick.
If I was one of the victims or the mother, I would do anything to destroy this man. Yes, I
know that Catholic church is also as guilty. But this sick faced Epstein with his evil smile,
has ruined many lives for his famous clients.
Child pedophilia is a disease wired in the brain and the only way to get rid of them, is
to execute them. There is no other solution. Imagine about the father who walked into his
house and witnessed his son getting raped by his sitter (man).
From a personal experience, when a burglar came to rub our house "As a minor not even a
teenage, I woke up with this stranger molesting me.". I had no idea what he was doing, but
that event gave me insomnia for the rest of my life.
So did Epstein provide the FBI with information for prosecutions? Doesn't seem like it.
Epstein knows the Clintons, Prince Andrew, Trump, and many others and they pressured the govt
to back off. Without any facts, the FBI cooperation story is just spin. His connected friends
have a lot to lose if he talks. I doubt that Mr. Epstein will live a long life.
Remember all those people on Clinton team who were interviewed by the FBI and granted
immunity? I remember. The crowd here was excited - oh, they are going to indict her today,
oh, they are going to drag her off tomorrow first thing... Turned out, all those immunities
were granted to protect them from future prosecutions.
Nothing may come out of this. Nothing, perhaps, will ever come out of this. The victim of
all these witch hunting is sitting in the President's chair; and when he is not interested in
getting justice for himself, or to uphold justice for the people, why should I worry about
justice for this world?
Failed Bureau of Investigation. Once a political organization, always a political
organization. I feel for the rank and file who's lives are determined by a few!
If this happened, if they focused on just WHAT THE **** HAPPENED in the Epstein case, I
might be a believer in our justice system. Even if it was just a minute. It could sweep up
Trump. It could flush the Clintons straight to hell.
"... Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure, unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!! ..."
"... How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? ..."
"... Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation. ..."
"... Bill Barr clean out the DOJ? I wouldn't count on it. He is a member in good standing of the swamp ..."
Remember when Dan Rather self-immolated his credibility in a desperate attempt to take out George W. Bush? The Killian documents
controversy (also referred to as Memogate or Rathergate) involved six purported documents critical of U.S. President George W. Bush's
service in the Texas Air National Guard in 1972–73.
Four of these documents[1] were presented as authentic in a 60 Minutes II broadcast aired by CBS on September 8, 2004, less than
two months before the 2004 presidential election, but it was later found that CBS had failed to authenticate the documents.[2][3][4]
Subsequently, several typewriter and typography experts concluded the documents were forgeries.[5][6]
Well, looks like Buzzfeed did not learn from history. Buzzfeed set the media world on fire on Friday with a story that appeared
well sourced that claimed Donald Trump had directed his lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to Congress about a Moscow real estate deal
that never came to fruition. The mainstream media went into hyper impeachment drive.
This was the nail in the Trump coffin as far as they were concerned. Trump was as good as dead.
Then a funny thing happened. Robert Mueller's press guy issued an unprecedented statement calling the Buzzfeed story pure,
unadulterated bullshit. Whoops!!
The Trump is dead meme quickly evaporated. Why did Mueller do this? The answer is simple. Bill Barr.
The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit. Mueller,
as an old friend of Barr, knew that he had to do something dramatic to distance himself and his staff from this toxic story.
Once Barr is installed in office, stand by. The Department of Justice and the FBI will received the equivalent of a high powered
enema. Both are sick institutions and need to have the feces flushed out.
"...Bill Barr. The soon to be new Attorney General is known as a man of impeccable integrity with a minimal tolerance for bullshit."
Mr. Barr seems as swampy as they get. He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans and is the classic beltway
sophist who has done much to reinterpret the constitution eviscerating the Bill of Rights. His past actions don't make him a man
of integrity unless of course being in service to the national security state is considered virtuous.
I believe Mr. Johnson's optimism of Barr's nomination leading to a "high powered enema" at the DOJ & FBI is unfounded. IMO,
none of the seditionists will be held to account. In any case POTUS Trump seems quite content with tweeting witch hunt rather
than declassifying and ordering a prosecutor convene a grand jury and have Brennan, Clapper, Comey, and all the other putschists
testify.
"He played a key role in the mass surveillance of all Americans"
He served under H.W. Bush who lost to Clinton. Obama did just what, beside get great protection from Brennan, Clapper, Comey
and a list of others you haven't named yet. How many of of the FBI and DOJ's top leadership from the Obama administration
have gotten fired and are being investigated for criminal conduct? What kind of support do you think the Trump administration
was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past two years?
"What kind of support do you think the Trump administration was getting from those outstanding civil servants for the past
two years?"
Well, it is the Trump administration that nominated Sessions, Rosenstein and Wray and now Barr. How many of those fired have
testified to a grand jury? They're nicely ensconced with their lucrative sinecures until the next Borg administration. Mueller
has spent tens of millions in going after Trump campaign minions. Where is the witch hunt against Brennan, Clapper, Comey, Lynch,
et al? Of course its not that POTUS has no agency here. He can order declassification and the appointment of a prosecutor with
a stroke of pen. Tweeting however is more like his pace.
Rather interviewed me in the library of the Army and Navy Club in DC at the height of the excitement over the obviously approaching
US invasion of Iraq in 2002. At one point he asked me if the Bushies were going to invade Iraq. I told himthat should not even
be a question. He did not believe me.
The only difference is that Rather had some small degree of credibility before the incident in question. I don't believe that
Buzzfeed has ever had a shred of credibility to anyone with the slightest ability to think.
Enema works for me but reading reports on the analysis of Ohr's transcript, I'm not even sure an enema is going to be enough
for the fbi. I think the only solution is liquidation.
This is a tragedy for past good /honest fbi agents but the fbi currently
is a pestilence on this country which claims to be a nation of laws.
Was it conspiracy or idiocy that led to the failure of U.S. intelligence agencies to detect
and prevent the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon headquarters?
That's one of the questions at the heart of "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the
Crimes of the War on Terror," by John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. In their careful and thorough
investigation of the events leading up to the attacks, the authors uncover a story about the
Central Intelligence Agency's neglect, possible criminal activities and a cover-up that may
have allowed al-Qaida to carry out its plans uninhibited by government officials.
In the latest installment of "Scheer Intelligence," the journalists tell Truthdig Editor in
Chief Robert Scheer how an interview with Richard Clarke, the counterterror adviser to
Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, led them to a jaw-dropping revelation regarding two
hijackers involved in the infamous attacks. As it turns out, Khalid Muhammad Abdallah
al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two men linked to al-Qaida, were staying at an FBI informant's
home in San Diego in 2000, and they were being tracked by the National Security Agency. Despite
knowledge of the men's ties to the terrorist organization responsible for 9/11, neither was
investigated by the FBI. Clarke and others believe that this may have had to do with a CIA
attempt to turn the two men into agency informants.
"When we sat down with Clarke he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that
there was an op [and] that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to
go through him," says Nowosielski.
"And his friend [then CIA Director] George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and
misfeasance in the runup to 9/11."
Once the plans for the 9/11 attack must have become clear to the CIA, why didn't the agency
prevent it from taking place? Duffy and Nowosielski come to the simple, shocking conclusion
that because the CIA is prohibited from operating on U.S. soil, those involved in the operation
chose to avoid prosecution rather than come clean.
In a well-documented case study that touches senior government officials, including current
special counsel Robert Mueller and other high-level individuals, crucial questions arise about
who is responsible for allowing "a plot that resulted in 3,000 murders" and led to ongoing U.S.
military entanglements in the Middle East to move forward.
However, our country's recent crimes and the people behind them, including President Bush,
are currently being "whitewashed" by our national obsession with Donald Trump, the authors
warn.
"All the crimes of the war on terror, the torture, Abu Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the
unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's all just sort of under the rug now because of
Trump," Duffy says.
Listen to their discussion to learn more about the stunning investigation into the tragedy
that changed the course of our nation's history and the Americans who could have thwarted the
attacks but decided to cover their own backs instead. You can also read a transcript of the
interview below the media player .
RS : Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of "Scheer Intelligence," where the
intelligence comes from my guests. And the title is really appropriate for the book we're going
to talk about today, "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on
Terror." And the authors are John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. And they are investigative
reporters, and the watchdogs here are the people in our intelligence agencies that are supposed
to be protecting the nation. And this book cuts very deeply into the unsolved mystery of how
9/11 happened. Why weren't we better prepared to prevent it? It's one of the most important
events in American history; it certainly has shaped our lives in terms of a surveillance state,
our rights and everything else, up to the present. And this book, I think, represents the most
exhaustive and well-documented effort to get to the bottom of the whole thing. You're very
careful in what you do and do not assert about 9/11, what we don't know about it, and
particularly the role of George Tenet, who was then head of the CIA, and the role of the CIA in
-- what is the right word? -- obscuring the story, even keeping information from the White
House, from the FBI. So give me the gist of the book.
RN : This is Ray. The book is largely about looking at this case study of the failure
leading up to 9/11, the people who were involved in that failure, how that came about, and how
they were successful, to the present day, in managing to obscure the public from really fully
understanding that this was, in the words of one of our sources, really just a handful of
people. And the most jarring thing is that they're still, in some cases, working today in I
guess Trump's CIA. And we sort of document through the second half of the book what damage was
done to America because they remained in their positions.
JD: This is John. And intelligence was gathered around the time of the millennium that led
people in the Bin Laden unit at the CIA to monitor a meeting in Malaysia that was a gathering
of these al-Qaida figures. In monitoring this --
RS : That was in the year 2000, right?
JD : Yes. Right at the outset of the year. In monitoring this meeting, they became aware of
the fact that one of the attendees had a multiple-entry visa to the United States. That man's
name was Khalid al-Mihdhar. He would eventually be on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon;
he was one of the hijackers. So this starts the whole thing there, the fact that the CIA
becomes aware of this information; the Bin Laden unit, counterterror center, and then all the
way up to George Tenet are aware of this information. There's a lot of ins, outs, and
what-have-yous about where that information goes, but it ultimately does not go over to the
FBI's counterterror division in New York, much to the protest of the FBI agents who were
detailed to the CIA's Bin Laden unit. And it did not make it to the White House counterterror
czar, Richard Clarke, who very much finds this to be, like, the crux of the whole story -- the
fact that this information was kept from his office for basically a year and eight months, up
until the success of the attacks. The crux is there, that they had this information, these guys
were coming into the country, they had just left the terror planning summit, and this
information was being held close by the Bin Laden unit, by the counterterror center, and by
George Tenet. The reason for that is unknown; the speculation that Richard Clarke has was that
George Tenet and these people in the Bin Laden unit and counterterror center thought having
these al-Qaida people in the United States, they could possibly go through Allied proxies in
the Saudi intelligence to try to get close to these guys, monitor them, potentially find out
information from them or even try to flip them. That's Richard Clarke's speculation as to why
this was kept from him for so long. Ultimately, the attack was successful; that they all just
did their best to bury all this and, you know, hope no one noticed.
RS : Let me just start off with something that was confusing to me in reading your book.
Because the FBI generally comes off looking pretty good in your book, and the real problem is
with the CIA, and to a lesser degree, with the NSA. And in the San Diego story, and this is
covered in the 9/11 Commission Report and others, the two San Diego guys -- they are staying at
the home of an FBI informant at first. So when you say the FBI was not informed, weren't some
of these calls actually made from the home of an FBI asset?
RN : It's interesting when you know, A, that according to our NSA sources they were able to
be pinged every time that Mihdhar and Hazmi, the two hijackers, called from that house that you
mentioned in San Diego, back to Yemen. That somebody in the NSA was getting an alert as that
was happening each time, and was aware of those connections. But that the house that was being
used for the phone call was that of an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh. And Abdussattar was
somebody the FBI recruited who was inside a popular mosque in San Diego, and who they thought
might be able to feed them warnings of anybody who might be a radical Muslim terrorist. And
Abdussattar claims that he simply missed the warning signs of the two tenants that he had in
his home. I mean, it's kind of interesting. He's also, he's not just an FBI informant, he's
also a Saudi, which kind of points to Richard Clarke's conjecture, which he first laid out to
us when we sat down in his office in 2009. And that was that once the CIA monitored the meeting
in Malaysia, knew that these two guys were connected to Bin Laden and were of interest, and saw
that they were heading to the United States, in Clarke's words, they might well have thought
that the best way to try to recruit these guys to feed information was not to send a blue-eyed,
blonde-haired, American CIA agent to go to meet them. But, instead, to use our partners in
Saudi Arabia and Saudi intelligence -- which George Tenet, the head of the CIA, happened to be
very close with -- to try to recruit them. So I actually focus more on the fact that this guy
was introduced to this house by a gentleman who's been determined to be a Saudi agent, a guy
named Omar al-Bayoumi, and that this guy then was perhaps working dually for Saudi intel and as
an FBI asset. And everyone sort of focuses on, oh, Abdussattar Shaikh was an FBI asset, so that
seems to put blame at the feet of the FBI. Could be; could be, but I would also focus on that
Saudi angle, because it recurs so often.
RS : Well, it also goes to the question of the efficiency of the surveillance society.
Because after all, these phone calls could be intercepted. You know, they did; they could
follow this trail. And phone calls are being made back to a suspect residence in Yemen and so
forth, from the home of an FBI recruit. And I'm just wondering, there's been a lot of
discussion, some of the people that you quote in your book have made this point -- you collect
this haystack of information that doesn't lead you to the needle in the haystack. And so here
these phone calls were, clearly could be intercepted. They didn't require any special act of
Congress or anything else. This was not a case of their arms being tied, the intelligence
agencies. But they're not even looking at their own data. Isn't that the takeaway from the
first part of this story? These guys are acting suspiciously in San Diego, they have a
suspicious background, they've participated in a suspicious conference, they're staying at the
home of an FBI informant, and they're making calls that would basically outline what was going
to happen in this disastrous attack -- and no one noticed. Or the ones who noticed didn't tell
other people.
JD : I think what is likely to have happened there is, so those calls were going back, and I
think it was about seven or eight calls. And Khalid al-Mihdhar's wife still lived at that
house, and he was calling her from San Diego. So I don't think any deep operational details
were being discussed in those calls, but that doesn't really matter; the fact that they're
calling that home from America is a big deal. And how that would work at the NSA is there's
someone who is tasked all day with basically monitoring the electronic signals going into and
out of this house in Yemen, and when they see this coming in from the United States, that
should ring a really big alarm bell. Now, that person working that desk would have to seek
approval from the chop chain, which are these NSA managers. In order for anything to happen
with that information, it has to get passed up and then brought to a FISA court, brought to the
FBI. And if these managers within the NSA basically say, don't worry about it, sit on it, just
collect it, sit on it -- and if they don't allow any action, then there will be no action. And
it's just going to stay housed right there, in that particular data stovepipe at the NSA. If
Richard Clarke's speculation is true, that there was this attempt to recruit these guys in the
U.S. with Saudi proxies, part of that plan would have been George Tenet speaking to someone at
the NSA, or one of George Tenet's people speaking to someone at the NSA. Basically saying, hey,
before you go out getting any FISA warrants or chasing anything down regarding this specific
house, come to us first. So if there is some operation going on, it would stand to reason that
part of that operation would be not allowing these pings at this particular desk to turn into
any action.
RS : For people listening, let me make clear, this is an incredibly detailed, researched
book, which relies very heavily on intelligence veterans. No one less so than Richard Clarke,
who's come up so far; another is former colonel Larry Wilkerson, obviously a key person. And
what is very dramatic in your book is, where your story really comes to life for you guys as
journalists, is when Richard Clarke -- you say you go in there to interview him, and you tell
your crew, put the sound on as we go in. And you go in, and you think you're going to have to
ask a lot of questions to get -- and for people who don't know, Richard Clarke ever since the
early '70s was a major figure in the intelligence community. And at this point, when you're
talking to him, he's been around the block, he's seen everything. And he was a close friend of
George Tenet, who was head of the CIA; they considered themselves allies. And you're going in
to get this interview, and you think you're going to have to weasel information out of him. And
he just hits you over the head with an assertion that, really, is the thrust of this book. So
why don't you take us to that moment?
RN : What we discovered on the day that we walked into Richard Clarke's conference room was
that he'd been ready for probably about a year to talk about this, and no major journalists had
called him up to ask him about this subject. Nobody had ever asked him. So going back, you
know, he started in the Reagan State Department; he worked under George H.W.; Clinton, when
these Al Qaeda terrorist attacks began in the early nineties, recognized that there needed to
be a new position within his Cabinet, and he called it the counterterror czar, the
counterterror adviser. And he created that position for Richard Clarke. As you mentioned,
Clarke was close friends with George Tenet, who also was sort of on the National Security
Council under Clinton early on, and then got named the head of the CIA in the midst of
Clinton's first term. George W. Bush and company come in, early 2001; as it turned out, nine
months ahead of this ticking clock towards 9/11. And Richard Clarke is told that he's
essentially being demoted. He's still going to be the counterterror advisor, but it's not a
Cabinet-level position. And so now he's kind of essentially going through the extra layer of
Condoleezza Rice. But George Tenet still very much has Bush's ear. And that's kind of the back
story there; then after, you know, on 9/11 Richard Clarke by nearly all accounts was running
the response that morning, on that critical day; he was the top man for counterterror. Over
time, he starts to get rubbed the wrong way by the fact that the Bush administration
inexplicably is not really terribly still concerned about Al Qaeda after 9/11. But then Clarke
leaves, and he writes a bestselling book. And he testifies before the 9/11 commission and
becomes the only person to apologize to the families, to admit that there was a failure at all.
But cut to a few years down the line, and he releases another book in 2008 that doesn't become
a bestseller. And it's called "Your Government Failed You." And it includes a section on
Mihdhar and Hazmi that he calls "Straining Credulity," in which he says that he does not
believe in conspiracy theories, but in this one particular case, he's weighed it every which
way and he can't see another way to explain it but by. But he sort of saved us speculation, and
so we saw that part in his book and we thought, well, we've been itching -- we'd collected
enough info by that time, and talked with enough people, that we thought: something happened
here with these two hijackers that flew over to the U.S. Something happened when they arrived.
And the big question was, if this was an operation by the CIA, did they let Clinton know? Did
they then let Bush know when he came in? What was the deal there? And Richard Clarke would be
the man in a position to answer that. And so you're right, that's where our journey really --
that's where we launched. Because we'd been looking into it for a few years, but when we sat
down with Clarke, that was when he told us he couldn't see any other explanation but that there
was an op, that it never made it to the White House because it would have had to go through
him. And his friend George Tenet was responsible for malfeasance and misfeasance in the runup
to 9/11.
JD : And he also, in part of that description, said that a lot of the CIA reports that would
have, any other day, come directly to his computer -- when he flicked it on in the morning, it
would be right there waiting for him -- just on this specific case with these two individuals,
he was removed from the chain of information. And so he felt that he was getting minutiae
concerning terrorism from around the world in, like, tiny micro-detail on everything except
this, and that must have meant he was intentionally pulled out of the chain by someone. And
that that would have taken high-level order. And when asked, you know, how high level, he said
that it must have come from the director, referring to George Tenet.
RS : So let's cut to the chase here. There's an old caution, don't attribute to conspiracy
what can be explained by ordinary stupidity. Or laziness, or incompetence. Is this a case where
George Tenet, the admired at that time head of the CIA, was just incompetent, stupid,
indifferent? Is there something more at work? Did the CIA welcome such an attack as a boon for
the military-industrial complex, as some people allege? What's going on here? How could this
major tragedy event be visited upon the United States, the head of our intelligence agency
knows that there are these suspect characters there, and he doesn't bother to tip off the FBI,
let alone the White House? And after all, the FBI is in charge of domestic surveillance;
they're the ones that have to go arrest these guys, you know, at least confront them, see what
they're doing. I have to tell people listening to this, this is a very careful, indeed
conservative, in the best sense of the word, book. This is not a book you can just dismiss by
saying it's got some wild, interesting theory. No -- you err, I would say, on the side of
caution, in a way.
JD : We err on the side of caution all the time, and we're not going to try to say something
that we can't really, really defend. If we start from a position that there's some level of
merit to what Clarke is suggesting, that there is this operation going on to try to monitor
these hijackers domestically by the CIA, as opposed to handing it off to the FBI -- presuming
he's right on that, there is this --
RS : Can I just add a little note that Wilkerson actually goes further.
JD : Wilkerson later suggests that he heard it mentioned after the fact, in about 2003 or
2004, when he is at the CIA. The invasion of Iraq has begun, and they're waiting for updated
satellite information, everyone's kind of standing around just kind of BS'ing. And he basically
overhears a conversation about how, oh man, Tenet tried to flip these guys in the U.S. and then
had to hide it because it all went wrong, and it would have come back to bite him. And yeah,
Wilkerson basically claims to have overheard high-level people speaking about that, just sort
of in a B.S. session.
RN : Well, and not really, not overheard; it's more like, he claimed multiple, very
high-level under Tenet sources, that he was close with at that time, who were in these "yak-yak
sessions," that he calls them. And they each claimed to be aware of the reality of this,
supposedly.
JD : You're asking, like, how nefarious it is. In the first period of all this, presuming
that it's true, presuming that there's this operation going on to try to flip these guys or
follow them or whatever, gather information on them domestically, you can imagine that, OK,
they're going to have some sort of setup in which to monitor these guys, or they're using Saudi
proxies perhaps, or other proxies, and they're following them. Then we get to this point where,
well, the attack succeeds on September 11, so how the heck does that happen? If you have this,
if you're monitoring these guys and then they do this, where does the ball get dropped? And our
book does go into that a bit, and we definitely say, like, there's this moment where they must
have said: OK. This isn't working, it's not happening, there has got to be a point where they
say, abandon ship. But what do they do? How do they abandon ship? They need to somehow turn
this over to the FBI to wrap it up for them. And the way they seem to do this is not by being
honest and saying, hey, we were trying to do this and it didn't work, but here's the
information -- go get 'em. They definitely don't do that.
RS : The "trying to do this" -- you mean to turn these terrorists into agents for
themselves? --
JD : So what I'm saying is, if at some point when it's not working, when the flip hasn't
happened, when whatever goal they set for themselves, when they haven't achieved it, a time
must come for them to wrap up this operation. A time must -- you can't just let them go all the
way and succeed in their attack, you would think.
RN : But I think what you're asking is the intention of the operation, which would seem --
well, the CIA was created in order to prevent future Pearl Harbors. So I guess, giving them the
benefit of the doubt, the intention of the operation would theoretically have been to monitor
these guys so as to figure out what they're doing here in the U.S.
JD : Yes, yes. We're giving them the benefit of the doubt there. And then we look at the
emails and cable traffic we can find in that summer, and we watch as -- there's no search for
these guys, there's no FBI search for these guys until August 23rd of 2001. And that's the
point where, surreptitiously, someone stationed at Alec Station, the Bin Laden unit, CIA, who's
going through old cable traffic, goes: Oh my gosh! I found a cable that these guys came to the
United States. And she alerts the FBI, and the FBI begins their domestic search. I guess what
I'm suggesting is, a time would have come when they, when whoever is running this operation at
the CIA, whatever the architecture of that operation looks like, they would have seen these
things happening. They would have seen the connections they were making with these other guys
coming to the United States. And a time would have come for them to say: OK. We have to pass
this off to the FBI to shut it down. And it does --
RS : But wait a minute. When you say OK, and they've seen things -- they see people who are
identified as terrorists, part of this terrorist network, traces back to Al Qaeda. And they are
learning about airplanes and how to fly them, and flight paths, and everything. And you're
telling me that they say, well, you know, maybe we're not going to actually recruit them, maybe
we're -- we better do something. Why aren't they saying, holy cow, these guys can do great
damage to this country! We got to call, what, the local San Diego police, at least, to get them
to check them out! No?
RN : OK, so these guys arrive in early 2000. What happens in October 2000? The U.S.S. Cole
is attacked in Yemen. FBI agents working that from top levels of the New York office of the FBI
find a very direct connection not only to Al Qaeda, but to that same planning meeting that the
CIA monitored. The same one where Mihdhar and Hazmi were at that planning meeting. So not only
do you have an inclination -- oh, these guys are Al Qaeda, they're probably not here to, in the
words of one person, go to f'ing Disneyland. They're here for something nefarious -- but now,
after October 2000, for the entire year up to 9/11, the CIA has the knowledge that these two
individuals that were at this meeting, that the meeting spawned the U.S.S. Cole attack, which
killed 17 dead servicemen. So I think at that point, yeah, calling the local San Diego police
would probably make a lot of sense.
RS : OK, and what about the FBI informant who was their link in San Diego? Why isn't he
telling anyone, or why doesn't the FBI know?
JD : You have to be careful to separate what's going on at different agencies. An FBI
informant's not necessarily reporting to the CIA, and the CIA informant's not reporting to the
FBI. And then you also have to understand that the FBI has national headquarters and then a
bunch of different field offices throughout the country. And you have field office reports
coming in, like the Phoenix memo from Ken Williams mentioning that there's these, all these
Muslim guys trying to learn to fly. You've got what Coleen Rowley exposes out of Minnesota,
when they bust Zacarias Moussaoui, and how they're trying to get into his laptop, and they're
being hampered by FBI headquarters. So I mean, you don't know what came from Abdussattar. But I
don't want to move too far into the weeds and off the general thrust of your original question.
And I think what you come down to is a fork in the road. At some point, either the CIA running
this operation has to wrap it up, or this major attack is going to succeed. If you ask
yourself, well, why didn't they wrap it up -- because obviously they didn't, and the attack did
succeed–so if you ask yourself why didn't they, there's one potential answer, which is
that they were afraid of being prosecuted. Because they had been running an illegal operation
in the United States. So their own fear for their own lives, freedom, careers, all that
stuff–
RS : For people who don't understand the law, you have to explain, the CIA was prevented
from running this kind of operation domestically. This is supposed to be up to the FBI.
JD : It is a crime for them to operate within the United States.
RN : And what Richard Clarke told us, we don't know how much of the information, like the
Phoenix memo and these other things that Duffy just mentioned, got to George Tenet. But what we
do know, the existence of Mihdhar and Hazmi in this country should have made it to him by that
point. Because his own CIA counterterror office had informed the FBI in August, and a search
had begun. So that information should have been in Tenet's head. We know that he was briefed
about Zacarias Moussaoui acting weird at a flight school in Minnesota. And he comes to the --
oh, man --
JD : September 4th principals meeting.
RN : -- September 4th principals meeting in the White House. Clarke has been pushing the
entire Bush administration, the entire eight, nine months, to be able to brief them on Al Qaeda
and make the case for why the administration should take this seriously. And he's finally got
that meeting, and George Tenet is sitting there, and he doesn't say a word. And he was later
asked by investigators why not, and he gave this really bizarre non-answer, which was just
like: it just wasn't the right time, right place, I just can't take you any further than that.
And they let him get away with leaving it at that, but Richard Clarke says the reason he
doesn't tell us at that point, he believes, is because Clarke would have had him brought up on
charges that day for malfeasance and misfeasance in withholding that information. Because
remember, that would also make his people culpable for the Cole, because they would have known
about the planning session for the Cole nine months before that one happened, too. So it looks
like --
JD : And then they would have been guilty of obstruction of justice for all of the hiding of
these figures once the FBI investigation into the Cole happened. So they have a long list of
things they become guilty of should they just turn this over and say, like: Ah, hey guys,
there's these guys, you should probably go do something about it. Now, that's one explanation.
Other people have other explanations. But as I said, we don't make accusations that we cannot
really, firmly back up. So this time, that's pretty much the one we typically go with.
RS : Two people in your book who take it further are Richard Clarke and Larry Wilkerson. Two
of the most highly experienced, knowledgeable individuals to come out of our whole military
intelligence complex. And they, put it in human terms, they say they don't know how these
people sleep at night. Wilkerson, even more than Clarke, suggests that these people could have
prevented 9/11, and knew about it. Now, I just want to ask you about one other person. Again,
the book is devastating; it's called "The Watchdogs Didn't Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes
of the War on Terror," John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski. But let me push it one step further to
the contemporary moment. The book is kind of easy on the FBI. But the fact is the FBI was
really the agency that should have been following these terrorists when they're in the United
States. But one guy who comes up in current making of history, and who was head of the FBI at a
critical point, is Mueller, who's now running the Russian, interference in our election
investigation. What was his role? I'd like to conclude on that, because he's a major figure
right now, the head of this special investigation. What was his role in this?
RN : I mean, it is important to remember that the guy came in, I think it was maybe 10 days
before 9/11, and took over the FBI. So he was, among the CIA, NSA, and FBI, he was able to be
the only one at the leadership helm in the post-9/11 days and months who you couldn't really
lay any culpability at his door for any kind of failure. Remember, the CIA director George
Tenet, he's right at the table with the President; he's a Cabinet-level guy. The FBI director,
it's not the same way. The FBI director reports to the Attorney General in the Department of
Justice, and the Attorney General gets the direct seat. We make the case in the book that when
George Tenet, in the week after 9/11, made the big play, the big power grab for the CIA, what
we call the wish list of every CIA director accumulated over the whole history of the agency,
and essentially puts it out there to Bush and says, these are the powers we need now to make
sure this kind of thing doesn't happen -- he gets his green light. Mueller, on the other hand
-- well, a couple things happen. For one thing, the stories–the CIA is better at keeping
their skeletons hidden, for a while. So the first stories that come out that start to paint a
picture of blame regarding 9/11, they're all pointing towards the FBI. Coleen Rowley comes out,
and she points a finger at Mueller in May of 2002, and that sort of gets the ball rolling on
the "it was the FBI's fault" story, which really didn't get corrected for quite a number of
years. So our sources tell us Mueller was playing defense, he was willing to kind of go along
as the Bush administration pushed that–we kind of know what happened here, so we don't
need to investigate this much further; you should be putting your FBI resources towards
preventing future attacks. And I can certainly understand why a man like Robert Mueller in that
position would say, would not want to be the guy that missed the next one. So from what we can
tell, and from what our sources told us, it does seem that he sort of wrapped up the 9/11
investigation, or just ended it midway. But what was happening was, we talked with Pat DeMoro
-- he was one of our sources -- and he took us inside, he ran the 9/11 criminal investigation;
remember, this was a crime, right. At least 19 guys, probably a lot more, were involved in a
plot that resulted in 3,000 murders. So he was investigating that, and he was finding over
about a two-year period, there would be leads that would point towards Saudi facilitators to
the hijackers, Saudi helpers, Saudi royal money coming over. And every time he found these, he
had to report them up to Bob Mueller. Bob Mueller would theoretically report them to the
Attorney General, who would theoretically report them to Bush. And yet the end result of this
was that Bush invades Iraq, and the U.S. public never heard about these Saudi connections
until, officially, until just a couple of years ago, really.
JD : And you have said that our book comes off pretty light on the FBI, and I think the
crucial difference to make clear is that most of the people we're talking about within the FBI
are from particularly one field office. We're talking about John O'Neill's people out of New
York, who are counterterror investigators. That's most of the people we're dealing -- we're
not, we mention a few other people from FBI headquarters, but we don't necessarily mention them
in the best light. And one of the big failures of the FBI is the search to find al-Mihdhar and
al-Hazmi, once they are made aware that they're in the country a couple weeks before 9/11. And
that is a huge story there, and we could only write so much book. So we don't want to just sit
here and say, like, oh, the FBI is great and did everything right; we focus specifically on a
handful of people who did do their damnedest to unearth the conspirators behind the Cole
attack, and to pass information about the presence of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi over to FBI
investigators in New York in the runup to 9/11. So we don't want to necessarily sit here and
say the FBI was perfect and did everything right; we're talking about a handful of
individuals.
RS : And as you've just indicated, your style and the character of this book is quite
scholarly. It's very thoughtful, it's incredibly well documented. And you got people really on
the inside, in the know, to trust you and to talk honestly about it. You've done the gumshoe
journalism, you took 10 years, you checked every record. What has been the critical
response?
RN : Well, we should have put Trump's picture on the cover. [Laughs] I think that would have
helped.
RS : That's a pretty profound observation, in a way. Because there's a whole bunch of people
now who think all of our troubles in this country started and will end with Trump. And it
really whitewashes everybody else.
JD : It's whitewashing a lot of people. There's, all of a sudden people who a few years ago
we were like, this is the worst person on earth! -- like George W. Bush, is now just being
embraced by Democrats as some, like, affable guy. All the crimes of the war on terror, the
torture, Abu-Ghraib, it's all just gone -- the unnecessary invasion of the war in Iraq, it's
all just sort of under the rug now because of Trump.
RS : Yeah, those were the adults watching the store. Everybody is angry that Trump doesn't
have adults watching the store, and now he just got in trouble with his Secretary of Defense,
pushing him out, and now that guy is whitewashed, right? He was considered a mad dog at one
point. So you're right; your book has run into a head storm of indifference to anything that
happened before Trump. But I'm asking a very pointed question. What happens? You guys spent
over 10 years on this, right?
RN : Yeah. And you know, our goal was not to get famous. [Laughs] We really did want
accountability for this small group of people that we thought, these people cannot stay in the
CIA, right? We're not going to keep letting them run the War on Terror, are we? And maybe if
people just know about this, or if we can just prove it–if we talk with enough insiders,
if we get enough documents together, if we write a book. It turns out, no. There's going to be
no accountability, and they're going to, the few that remain now at high levels of the CIA are
going to continue to do what they do, and no one's going to know about it except for folks that
listen to your show, so thank you.
RS : Well, they're going to write the history. I mean, the amazing thing–you think of
a movie like "Zero Dark Thirty," you know; and you quote John Kiriakou in your book, and he was
in the CIA; he was actually very successful in being involved with the capture of the highest
person connected with al-Qaida, and so forth. And they spun a myth that the torture worked, and
you needed torture, and blah blah blah. And it basically went unchallenged. So these people who
either lied, or just lied by not talking, even to the FBI or the White House -- they get to
control the narrative. And then a book like yours comes out, and -- I'm asking a very serious
question. What has been the response of The New York Times, The Washington Post?
JD : [Laughing] We're still waiting to hear what The Washington Post and The New York Times
think. We've gotten a lot of praise from people who have read it, but we're not getting any
really major national or international reviews. Well, one thing we like to do, you mentioned
"Zero Dark Thirty." And the main character, played by Jessica Chastain, is sort of an
amalgamation of a handful of people who did work at the CIA, most prominently a woman by the
name of Alfreda Bikowsky, who is mentioned very prominently in our book. We want people to know
her name, Alfreda Bikowsky, because it's a name that was sort of an open secret in the media
in, you know, New York, Washington, for many, many years. Her involvement goes from the
pre-9/11 period there at Alec Station through torture and drone killings, and we want to make
sure that her name gets out there so she can't hide in the shadows.
RN : Her name was never mentioned in any media until it came out on our website. It was 11
years, 10 months from the first alleged crime she'd committed that we documented, until her
name came out on our website.
JD : We just like to throw her name out there every once in a while, and make sure more and
more people hear it.
RS : Ah, that should be enough to inspire people to get a copy of "The Watchdogs Didn't
Bark: The CIA, NSA, and the Crimes of the War on Terror." It's written by John Duffy and Ray
Nowosielski. It's a very, very important book. This is the yeoman journalistic work on the
story, and it's informed by people on the inside who really witnessed it, and were shocked by
what they saw, high-level people. So I recommend the book. I want to thank you guys for coming
on. OK, that's it for this edition of Scheer Intelligence. Our engineers at KCRW are Kat Yore
and Mario Diaz. Our producers are Joshua Scheer and Isabel Carreon. I'm Robert Scheer, and
we're doing this broadcast from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for
Communication and Journalism, where Sebastian Grubaugh, as he often does, has made the show
work, and I want to thank him.
Essentially they are trying to control the US foreign policy. That's a sign of the slide to neofascism as under
neofascism intelligence agencies have a political role and are instrumental in crashing the dissent.
Notable quotes:
"... The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy establishment. ..."
"... By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist NKVD. ..."
"... The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder, Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy." ..."
"... Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television news. ..."
"... But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials." ..."
The Times claims that Trump "had caught the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents when
he called on Russia during a campaign news conference in July 2016 to hack the emails of his
opponent, Hillary Clinton." Given that this was a sarcastic campaign remark directed against
Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and delivered at a
public news conference, Trump's sally can hardly be construed as evidence of a conspiracy.
The Times article goes on to describe how FBI officials monitored the platform adopted at
the Republican National Convention, reporting that the spy agency "watched with alarm as the
Republican Party softened its convention platform on the Ukraine crisis in a way that seemed to
benefit Russia." That is, the nation's top police agency was concerned that the positions
adopted contravened certain basic tenets of dominant sections of the foreign policy
establishment.
By what constitutional authority can the FBI, based on political positions adopted by one or
the other of the two main capitalist parties, open up a secret investigation into treason and
conspiracy? Such an operation bespeaks a police state and recalls the methods of the Stalinist
NKVD.
The agency also investigated four of Trump's campaign aides over possible ties to Russia,
and even made use of the notorious Steele dossier, consisting of anti-Trump gossip collated
from Russian sources by a former British intelligence agent on the payroll of the Democratic
Party.
After Trump fired Comey, according to the Times , "law enforcement officials became so
concerned by the president's behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working
on behalf of Russia against American interests Counterintelligence investigators had to
consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national
security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or
had unwittingly fallen under Moscow's influence."
The operations of the FBI, encouraged, aided and abetted by the Times , recall the paranoid
rantings of the John Birch Society, the ultra-right group formed in the 1950s, whose founder,
Robert Welch, notoriously claimed that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, the former World War II
commander of Allied forces in Europe, was a "a dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist
conspiracy."
Claims that once were the province of an extremist group, on the fringes of American
politics, are now embraced by the military-intelligence apparatus, appear on the front page of
the most influential American daily newspaper, and dominate the network and cable television
news.
But these allegations have no credibility. Why should anyone believe claims that Trump, at
age 70, after decades as a real estate mogul, con man and media celebrity, with a
billion-dollar fortune, suddenly decided to throw in his lot with Vladimir Putin? Even the
Times report itself concedes, in a single sentence buried in the 2,000-word text, "No evidence
has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian
government officials."
While there is no evidence of a conspiracy between Trump and Moscow, the Times report itself
is evidence of a conspiracy involving the intelligence agencies and the corporate media to
overturn the 2016 presidential election - which Trump won, albeit within the undemocratic
framework of the Electoral College - and install a government that would differ from Trump's
chiefly in being more committed to military confrontation with Russia in Syria, Ukraine and
elsewhere.
A secret security investigation by a powerful police agency directed against an elected
president or prime minister can be described as nothing other than the antechamber to a coup by
the military or intelligence services.
Historically, the FBI has been at the center of such dangers in the United States. Its
founding director, J. Edgar Hoover, was notorious for his unchecked power, particularly during
the period of the McCarthy anticommunist witch hunt, when he accumulated dossiers on virtually
every Democratic and Republican politician and authorized widespread spying on civil rights and
antiwar groups.
President John F. Kennedy was so concerned that he installed his brother Robert as attorney
general - and nominal superior to Hoover - to keep watch over the bureau. That did not save
Kennedy from assassination in 1963 , an event linked in still undisclosed ways to ultra-right
circles, including Cuban exiles embittered by the Bay of Pigs disaster, Southern
segregationists, and sections of the military-intelligence apparatus up in arms over Kennedy's
signing of a nuclear test ban treaty with Moscow.
The New York Times report - and a companion piece published Sunday in the Washington Post
claiming that Trump has kept secret key details of his private conversations with Putin - serve
to legitimize antidemocratic and unconstitutional conduct by the military-intelligence
apparatus .
These reports shed light on the striking complacency in the "mainstream" media over Trump's
threats to declare a national emergency, using the pretext of his conflict with congressional
Democrats over funding of a border wall, which has led to a three-week-long partial shutdown of
the federal government.
If one takes for good coin the main contention of the reports by the two newspapers, their
acquiescence in a potential Trump declaration of emergency rule is inexplicable. After all, if
Trump is Putin's agent, then a Trump declaration of a state of emergency, giving him sweeping,
near-absolute authority, would put the United States under the control of Moscow.
The explanation is that the Times and the Post welcome the discussion of emergency rule, to
prepare the forces of the state for coming conflicts with the working class. Their only
disagreement with Trump is over which faction of the ruling elite, Trump or his opponents in
the Democratic Party, should direct the repression.
One thing is certain: if Trump declares a national emergency, or if, as the Post suggested
in an editorial, his opponents in the ruling elite declare a national emergency over alleged
Russian "meddling" as part an effort to remove him, it will represent an irrevocable break with
democracy.
It is impossible to determine which side in this sordid conflict is more reactionary. The
working class is confronted with two alternatives :
either the present political crisis will be resolved by one faction of the ruling elite
moving against the other, using the methods of palace coup and dictatorship, whose essential
target is the working class,
or workers will move en masse against the political establishment as a whole and the
capitalist system that it defends.
The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal
elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia.
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship
-- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will
not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly,
New York Times columnist
David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some
countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have
now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no
facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.
And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times '
own recent "bombshells,"
published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump]
had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents
and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual,
the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly
in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")
Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and
cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington
Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott,
President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution.
According to Talbott
, "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding
with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated
suspicions and allegations.
In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth,
Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.)
For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI
lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless,
the Times quotes Page
at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western
alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals."
Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though
for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.
Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect
the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has
done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because,
according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed
the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin
summit in Helsinki in July 2018.
It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth
is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private
time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership
they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies
often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with
Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation
with Russia.")
That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy
of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding
information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo
afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin
leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.
Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October
1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took
notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result,
in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range
ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)
And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings
with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep
America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the
two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book
War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump
Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.
The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev
met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied
by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed
in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book
War with Russia? From Putin and
Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is
here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com . )
"... According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. ..."
"... Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. ..."
"... IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing ..."
The president of the US was made head of the Executive Branch (EC) of the federal government by Article 2 of the present constitution
of the US. He is also Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the federal government. As head of the EC, he is head of all the
parts of the government excepting the Congress and the Federal courts which are co-equal branches of the federal government. The
Department of Justice is just another Executive Branch Department subordinate in all things to the president. The FBI is a federal
police force and counter-intelligence agency subordinate to the Department of Justice and DNI and therefore to the president in
all things. The FBI actually IMO has no legal right whatever to investigate the president. He is the constitutionally elected
commander of the FBI. Does one investigate one's commander? No. The procedures for legally and constitutionally removing a president
from office for malfeasance are clear. He must be impeached by the House of Representatives for "High Crimes and Misdemeanors"
and then tried by the US Senate on the charges. Conviction results in removal from office.
According to these transcripts of congressional testimony by some of the participants, the FBI decided all by itself after
Comey was fired to consider acting against Trump by pursuing him for suspicion of conspiracy with Russia to give the Russians
the president of the US that they supposedly wanted. Part of the discussions among senior FBI people had to do with whether
or not the president had the legal authority to remove from office an FBI Director. Say what? Where have these dummies been all
their careers? Do they not teach anything about this at the FBI Academy? The US Army lectures its officers at every level of schooling
on the subject of the constitutional and legal basis and limits of their authority.
Following these seditious and IMO illegal discussions the FBI and Sessions/Rosenstein's Justice Department sought FISA
Court warrants for surveillance against associates of Trump and members of his campaign for president. Their application
for warrants were largely based on unsubstantiated "opposition research" funded by the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign.
The judge who approved the warrants was not informed of the nature of the evidence. These warrants provided an authority for surveillance
of the Trump campaign.
IMO this collection of actions when added to whatever Clapper, Brennan and "the lads" of the Deep State were doing with
the British intelligence services amount to an attempted "soft coup" against the constitution and from the continued stonewalling
of the FBI and DoJ the coup is ongoing. pl
The books does not answer the key question: if it was not Russian influence, who of forign
powers tried to influence the election: GB, Israel, Saudi, or all three. We have solid evidence
of interference of British intelligence services into the election. Which means May government
interference.
Also important to understand that FBI from the very beginning was apolitical tool. Nothing
new here.
This dirty political witch hunt has one major goal to cement the cracks in neoliberal society
that appear after 2008 Financial crash. This attempt failed and Pateigenosse Mueller is unable to
change that. Confidence in the ruling neoliberal oligarchy collapsed and problem with the
inequality laid now bare.
My interest in this book occurred by chance. Over the past couple years reading news stories
on sites like Yahoo News I sensed a very overt stance against President Trump. It appeared
very obvious to me, but I wanted some confirmation whether these views may have validity, or
perhaps not. So I started to investigate other opinions via some of the conservative talk
radio shows. Up until this time, I rarely listened to them. One was the Sean Hannity Show and
Gregg Jarrett was sitting in for Sean on one of the shows. He mentioned his book and I
thought it sounded interesting. My basic assumption even prior to reading this book was I
never felt there was any illegal Trump/Russian collusion in our recent election. I couldn't
see how it would ever be done in such a way that would actually affect the voting outcome
(other than if it were some kind of ballot box type fraud). So I had doubts about all the
related investigations. When this book was mentioned I figured it would offer some factual
information to help me understand the investigations better. It did accomplish that. And much
more awareness.
One of the major items about this book is that it is well researched and documented. This
made me feel somewhat comfortable about its content. There is so much misinformation making
its rounds today that knowing what is truthful and what isn't can become a real guessing
game. I could even ask 'Did Mr. Jarrett fabricate his sources'? At this point I will go on
faith that they are real.
Based on that assumption, he presents a very hard case about the Russian collusion
investigation as not being quite what the U.S.A. people are being led to believe by the media
outlets. So much so, I hope this book could be a catalyst for other investigations (assuming
that isn't already being planned). As summarized in this book, a major point is about federal
investigative departments having integrity in performing their duties, and doing so legally
and without prejudice or political partisanship. This book does raise some real concerns.
The author states at the end of the book "The people who should read this book, probably
won't". Unfortunately he is probably correct. As a country we seem so divided today
politically. It is my impression that anti-Trumpers will probably not want to acknowledge any
conflicting thoughts or facts to their beliefs. But this book could be a great exercise in
broadening one's knowledge regarding the investigations on Trump. It would show a different
viewpoint than that being touted by much of the media, and has the facts backing it up. At
the very least, it can provide some food for thought.
As Gregg Jarrett states in the Epilogue of this book, "The people who should read this book,
probably won't... they are intellectually dishonest in believing that the president must have
committed some crime in connection with Russia...There was never any plausible evidence that
Trump or his campaign collaborated with Russia to win the presidency... Comey's scheme to
trigger the appointment of his friend as special counsel was a devious maneuver by an
unscrupulous man..."
As many of these events unfolded I have watched closely and performed my own "tests of
reasonableness" from facts presented. Utilizing logic and common sense I often wondered if I
was missing something? What crystal ball would have predicted that Donald Trump would run for
the presidency? One example: The press told us he had been a political asset for many years
and had been exchanging Intel with the Russians...
Then I heard about this book, purchased it and began reading it... I could hardly put it
down... The information in it is astonishing! It is all to clear now...
Jarrett has researched, compiled and formatted an almost air-tight legal case (within this
book) for prosecuting these "weasels." The astonishing levels of corruption and crimes
committed by those in the highest levels of the DOJ and FBI are unprecedented. He has
compiled an extraordinary amount of source information to back up his many claims throughout
the book. I am totally perplexed that our so-called leaders in Congress are allowing this
abuse to go unpunished... baffling? This disgraceful abuse of power documented by Jarrett
will come back to haunt us! A well written expose by Mr. Jarrett!
Gregg Jarrett's research leaves NO DOUBT that drastic action needs to be taken to hold these
people- PRETENDING to represent the law- accountable & end their "assassination" tactics
on our tax dollar.
This is not Halloween, not a play. This is REALITY with our laws running amok!
And our Congress - our elected officials, supposedly servants of We, the People, - is not
taking action?
How is this possible?
Incredibly well researched and well written book which explains methodically in an easy to
read style the undeniable deep seated bias against President Trump at the highest levels of
the Department of Justice and the FBI. They tried to first prevent him from being elected by
exonerating Hillary Clinton of a long list of crimes committed during her tenure as Secretary
of State and then smearing him with a politically motivated fake "Dossier". When that didn't
work, they have tried to undermine his presidency from the start with an equally politically
motivated Special Prosecutor investigating "Collusion with Russia" in an investigation which
had no crime to investigate from the start. A must read for all Americans.
This author writes with a very smooth, easy, but detailed style. The book brings in much law
for the reader to digest, but, somehow, does not get a reader tangled up in the weeds. As for
the thrust of the book: A detailed 'tick tock' of the day by day events that have taken
America to the point we are today on this entire question of Trump, Russia, and the 2016
election.
This book really is vivid proof that the 'deep state' does emphatically exist. Not as a
structure or organization with secret meetings,rituals or handshakes. But as a mentality, or
common political/social view of government, stemming from the longevity of bureaucracy to
feel invulnerable to popular will because of their simple edict that 'we'll still be here
after you're long gone'. And from this, these bureaucrats build liaisons with favoring
political elites that lead to deep, hidden, obscure --shall we say 'deep state'-- actions to
pervert the popular will for the ends of a few.
This book vividly displays why bureaucrats (whose lifeblood is to promote more government) so
turn their collective hand to supporting Democrats, the party of government. Yates covering
for Comey and the blackmailing of Gen. Flynn, Comey leaking to a friend in Academia that
provokes the appointment of his (Comey's) close associate --indeed, his mentor-- Robert
Mueller. Senior bureaucrats (McCabe, Strzok) playing inside baseball to maneuver themselves
for promotion in the expected new (Democratic) administration that they so much support and
wish for. Indeed friendships with FISA judges to assure bogus warrants can be obtained
against political enemies.
Where money and power are traded as coin of the realm in a way that is so antiseptic and
hidden. Nobody says 'How much money will it take'; instead it's 'I can help you fund raise'.
Rod Blagojevich was foolish enough to call a bribe a bribe...well, he's in jail, but Strzok's
wife isn't.
It just goes on and on................it's simple corruption!!! And the band plays
on......the human comedy continues........
Excellent detailed and researched book that simply amazes me. Lynch, Comey, Clinton, Stzrok,
Orr, Rosenstein, McCabe, Reid and Brennen all worked seamlessly to install Hillary and have a
backup plan B to lay the groundwork to impeach Trump in case she doesn't make it. All under
the oversight of Obama. Neat trick, but what follows is even more orchestrated: MEDIA
COMPLICITY! You can't pull this off unless you have the full cooperation willingly or
otherwise of: NBC, CBS, NPR, ABC, MSNBC, and most of all CNN, the New York Times, and
Washington Post! Here's where the real story lies. The media and the Democrat party are
simpatico, joint at the brain and mouth and one other orifice. This is the real story that
Jarrett only pays passing attention to. Sequel maybe, I hope so. Jon Kuhl Papillion, NE &
New England
This book is very thorough and completely exposes the Deep State. If there were any doubts
about the conspiracy to depose President Trump before reading this book, there certainly
aren't any afterwards. After reading the book, I am very disappointed and discouraged to find
that our government has such liars and criminals in the FBI, the DOJ, and the Congress. I
have completely lost any confidence I had in the U.S. government and will never believe in it
again, unless there is a complete house-cleaning in the FBI and the DOJ.
Jarrett pens a comprehensive review of the Deep State's inordinate fraud on our Constitution
-- perhaps the greatest attack on our constitutional republic in the history of our country.
He writes in clear and empathetic style. His narrative evolves in a coherent and logical
progression that details the conspirators' skullduggery in an "ABC" type of progression. He
cites exactly who violated the relevant federal statute and why and how it was violated.
Unfortunately, as of 30 September 2018 -- the date I'm preparing the review -- none of the
miscreants have been indicted even though the documentation of evidence is ponderous.
Gregg Jarrett's study -- and that is what this book is, a study -- covers two main aspects of
recent history. First and foremost it is an in-depth look at the tactics and forces arrayed
against President Trump. Intertwined with this comes by necessity a parallel look at Hillary
Clinton's tenure as Secretary of State, her presidential run, as well as a broader look at
the activities of the Clintons with the nearly full support of those same forces that are now
aligned against the presidency of Donald Trump. The nature of the often overlapping issues
and the personnel involved has resulted in a fair amount of repetition of key points. This
was not a lazy attempt to achieve a book-length manuscript, as Jarrett's original copy by his
own admission in the acknowledgments was a hefty 100,000 words before the publisher
encouraged him to trim things down.
It is unfortunate that this book will be dismissed by so many who are unwilling to
understand and accept that the pervasive high-level animosity against President Trump has
evolved into a direct and active threat against our country -- and this threat is compounded
by a complicit media that is eager to pounce. The rule of law has been twisted and contorted
if not completely abandoned. Trump is the primary target, but whether by design or
happenstance it is the U.S. Constitution that is being the most assaulted. The danger of this
cannot be overemphasized -- we are at a critical crossroads. Gregg Jarret understands this
and was motivated to bring this truth to light. He is no sycophant of President Trump. His
loyalty is to the rule of law and to our Constitution rather than to political agendas on
either side.
I withheld one star because a great opportunity was lost. This book will never appear in
classrooms, and it will likely be stocked in few law libraries. It most certainly should be,
and it needs to be read and studied. The flagrant abuses of power by the DOJ, the FBI, and
others need to be brought out into a bright light and the corruption purged. As a people we
need to get our head out of the sand and realize what has been going on behind closed doors
-- our future is most definitely at stake. The lost opportunity that I am alluding to comes
down to the expressed (albeit well deserved) disdain and disgust that Gregg Jarrett now has
towards those who are participating in this hoax that he has so thoroughly revealed. I fear
even the preface itself will turn away those who most need to read this book.
What will be perceived as bias before the facts are presented and developed will allow or
even cause those who need to read this book to close their minds, giving them the excuse they
want to dismiss the evidence. If strictly the evidence and history had alone been presented
with Jarrett's (again, well-deserved) animosity being held in check and edited out, then
perhaps this book could have become a classic for later generations to study assuming that we
survive these perilously subversive times. I did the math, and there are 771 supporting
references -- an average of 70 per chapter -- documenting Jarrett's research, plus 12
references even in the epilogue. Obviously, we are not talking about willfully blind opinion
with no basis in fact.
The antagonists who post their 1-star reviews with almost all of them having obviously
never read the book (Re. few verified purchases) reveal a dangerous willful ignorance that
they are happy to embrace. Their mindset should concern us all.
Clinton Democrats (DemoRats) are so close to neocons that the current re-alliance is only natural and only partially caused by
Trump. Under Obama some of leading figures of his administration were undistinguishable from neocons (Samantha Power is a good
example here -- she was as crazy as Niki Haley, if not more). There is only one "war party in the USA which
continently consists of two wings: Repugs and DemoRats.
Notable quotes:
"... Both GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham , one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary Clinton , who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror jargon. ..."
"... That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's way" ..."
"... But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in 2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent. ..."
"... This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan ..."
"... While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining ..."
"... At the same time, Democratic policy elites in Washington are once again formally aligning with neoconservatives , even to the point of creating joint foreign policy advocacy groups (a reunion that predated Trump ). The leading Democratic Party think tank, the Center for American Progress, donated $200,000 to the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute and has multilevel alliances with warmongering institutions. ..."
"... By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet, MSNBC, is stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a "national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism"). ..."
"... All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation -- which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way. ..."
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP'S December 18 announcement that he intends to withdraw all U.S.
troops from Syria produced some isolated support in the
anti-war wings of bothparties , but largely provoked
bipartisan outrage among in Washington's reflexively pro-war establishment.
Both
GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham, one of the country's most reliable war supporters, and Hillary
Clinton, who repeatedly criticized former President Barack Obama for insufficient
hawkishness, condemned Trump's decision in very similar terms, invoking standard war on terror
jargon.
But while official Washington united in opposition, new polling data from
Morning Consult/Politico shows that a large plurality of Americans support Trump's Syria
withdrawal announcement: 49 percent support to 33 percent opposition.
That's not surprising given that Americans by a similarly large plurality agree with the
proposition that "the U.S. has been engaged in too many military conflicts in places such as
Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan for too long and should prioritize getting Americans out of harm's
way" far more than they agree with the pro-war view that "the U.S. needs to keep troops in
places such as Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan to help support our allies fight terrorism and
maintain our foreign policy interests in the region."
But what is remarkable about the new polling data on Syria is that the vast bulk of support
for keeping troops there comes from Democratic Party voters, while Republicans and independents
overwhelming favor their removal. The numbers are stark: Of people who voted for Clinton in
2016, only 26 percent support withdrawing troops from Syria, while 59 percent oppose it. Trump
voters overwhelmingly support withdraw by 76 percent to 14 percent.
A similar gap is seen among those who voted Democrat in the 2018 midterm elections (28
percent support withdrawal while 54 percent oppose it), as opposed to the widespread support
for withdrawal among 2018 GOP voters: 74 percent to 18 percent.
Identical trends can be seen on the question of Trump's announced intention to withdraw half
of the U.S. troops currently in Afghanistan, where Democrats are far more supportive of keeping
troops there than Republicans and independents.
This case is even more stark since Obama ran in 2008 on a pledge to end the war in
Afghanistan and bring all troops home. Throughout the Obama years, polling data
consistently showed that huge majorities of Democrats favored a withdrawal of all
troops from Afghanistan:
With Trump rather than Obama now advocating troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, all of this
has changed. The new polling data shows far more support for troop withdrawal among Republicans
and independents, while Democrats are now split or even opposed . Among 2016 Trump voters,
there is massive support for withdrawal: 81 percent to 11 percent; Clinton voters, however,
oppose the removal of troops from Afghanistan by a margin of 37 percent in favor and 47 percent
opposed.
This latest poll is far from aberrational. As the Huffington Post's Ariel Edwards-Levy
documented early this week , separate polling shows a similar reversal by Democrats on
questions of war and militarism in the Trump era.
While Democrats were more or less evenly divided early last year on whether the U.S. should
continue to intervene in Syria, all that changed once Trump announced his intention to
withdraw, which provoked a huge surge in Democratic support for remaining. "Those who voted for
Democrat Clinton now said by a 42-point margin that the U.S. had a responsibility to do
something about the fighting in Syria involving ISIS," Edwards-Levy wrote, "while Trump voters
said by a 16-point margin that the nation had no such responsibility." (Similar trends can be
seen among GOP voters, whose support for intervention in Syria has steadily declined as Trump
has moved away from his posture of the last two years --
escalating bombings in both Syria and Iraq and killing far more civilians , as he
repeatedly vowed to do during the campaign -- to his return to his other campaign pledge to
remove troops from the region.)
This is, of course, not the first time that Democratic voters have wildly shifted their
"beliefs" based on the party affiliation of the person occupying the Oval Office. The party's
base spent the Bush-Cheney years denouncing war on terror policies, such as assassinations,
drones, and Guantánamo as moral atrocities and war crimes, only to suddenly support those
policies once they
became hallmarks of the Obama presidency .
But what's happening here is far more insidious. A core ethos of the anti-Trump #Resistance
has become militarism, jingoism, and neoconservatism. Trump is frequently attacked by Democrats
using longstanding Cold War scripts wielded for decades against them by the far right: Trump is
insufficiently belligerent with U.S. enemies; he's willing to allow the Bad Countries to take
over by bringing home U.S. soldiers; his efforts to establish less hostile relations with
adversary countries is indicative of weakness or even treason.
By far the most influential [neo]liberal media outlet,
MSNBC, is
stuffed full of former Bush-Cheney officials, security state operatives, and agents , while
even the liberal stars are notably hawkish (a decade ago, long before she went as far down the
pro-war and Cold Warrior rabbit hole that she now occupies, Rachel Maddow heralded herself as a
"national security liberal" who was "all about counterterrorism").
All of this has resulted in a new generation of Democrats, politically engaged for the first
time as a result of fears over Trump, being inculcated with values of militarism and
imperialism, trained to view once-discredited, war-loving neocons such as Bill Kristol, Max
Boot, and David Frum, and former CIA and FBI leaders as noble experts and trusted voices of
conscience. It's inevitable that all of these trends would produce a party that is increasingly
pro-war and militaristic, and polling data now leaves little doubt that this transformation --
which will endure long after Trump is gone -- is well under way.
It takes very little to govern good people. Very little. And bad people cant be governed
at all.
― McCarthy, Cormac. (2005). "No Country for Old Men"
It's become clear justice is dead in the United States. The respect for law is gone. If
President Trump was ever going to drain the swamp, the Clintons, and even former president
Obama, would have been dressed in orange by now. It didn't happen. Instead, it is Trump who now
stands accused:
There is nothing Trump or any member of his administration has done that is comparable to
Hillary Clinton's use of her own email server while U.S. secretary of state, or her
destroying tens of thousands of emails after they were subpoenaed by Congress, or foreign
governments' and corporations' paying vast sums of money to Bill Clinton and The Clinton
Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. Nor is there anything Trump or
anyone in his administration has done comparable to the Obama administration's use of the IRS
to suppress conservative nonprofits; its selling guns to Mexican drug cartels, at least one
of which was later found at the scene where a Border Patrol officer was killed; or the lies
it told about the cause of the murder of a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans in
Benghazi. Yet any suggestion by Republicans that these activities be investigated is
effectively shouted down by the Democrats and the media. And let's not talk about the real
collusion in 2016 – between the FBI, the State Department, the Clinton campaign and the
Obama White House, using material sourced in part from the Russian government – to
undermine the Republican candidate for president and his presidency.
Even worse, it appears the investigations into government corruption by Inspector General
Michael Horowitz and Utah U.S. attorney John Huber, were, in fact, the
cover-up :
At this point, there is every
reason to believe that the purpose of Huber's investigation is to hide the truth, not to
find it; to protect the criminals, not to charge them. The key witnesses in each of the
matters under investigation have not even been contacted. It appears that no grand juries
have been empaneled.
Tom Fitton, of Judicial Watch says, "Huber wasn't tapped to investigate anything", he was
just "a distraction".
Obama strategy in Syria was replica of Clinton strategy in Yugoslavia during the Balkan Wars. Divide everybody up by ethnicity
or religion (Croats are Catholics, Serbians are Orthodox not to mention the various Muslims and Albanians lurking about), arm
them, create false flags to set them at each other's throats. Enjoy the results.
Obama like Clinton before him was a real wolve in sheep's clothing
Notable quotes:
"... Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving US imperialism a pleasing face. ..."
"... Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump. ..."
But the notion that it is part of a complex and tightly scripted conspiracy in which he
plays his public part and the deep state play theirs, pretending to be at odds with each
other, is bizarre.
I would've agreed with you before Obama. I followed the criticisms of Obama from true
progressives closely. It was clear within 2 or 3 years that Obama was betraying his 'base'.
His lofty rhetoric didn't match his actions. His Nobel Peace Prize can only be viewed
today as a ruse. He talked of peace and fairness but worked behind the scenes to further the
establishment.
Fast forward to the 2016 election where Sanders was a sheepdog and Hillary ran a terrible
campaign. It's difficult to look back and not be at least somewhat suspicious of the 2016
election. A populist nationalist was what the Deep State NEEDED to face the threat from
Russia and China to their NWO project. And that is what they got. After recognizing the
threat in 2013-14 (when Russia countered the Empire in Syria and Ukraine).
Similar excuses are made for both Obama and Trump. We are told that they were FORCED to
succumb to Deep State scheming and political power. But a much more logical view is that
these "populists" know exactly what they are doing: they know what their 'job' is to serve
the establishment and act as the leader of the Deep State's political arm. In return they get
financial gain, social standing, and life long protection. Sweet.
Obama 'turned the page' on the Bush Administration's warmongering. He promised a more
peaceful USA. But he conducted covert wars and bragged of his drone targeting.
Trump 'turned the page' on Obama's deceitfulness. He promised to put 'America First' but
within months attacked Syria with missiles "for the babies". Evidence that his first attack
was prompted by a false flag didn't deter him from attacking AGAIN - also based on a false
flag. Trump is still helping the Saudis in Yemen. And he's not doing what's necessary to get
peace in Korea.
Obama promised 'transparency' ("Sunlight is the best disinfectant") but 'no drama' Obama
protected CIA torturers, NSA spies, and bankers. Trump promised to "drain the swamp" but has
welcomed oligarchs and neocons into his Administration.
How much sly BS do we have to see before people connect the dots? A real populist will
NEVER be elected in USA unless there is a revolution; USA political elites are fully
committed to a neoliberal economics that make society neofeudal, and a neoconservative-driven
foreign policy that demands full spectrum dominance that brooks no opposition to its NWO
goals.
Anyone who believes otherwise has drunk the Kool-Aid, an addictive, saccharine concoction,
provided without charge and in abundance.
Glenn Brown | Jan 5, 2019 10:27:14 PM |
39@ 10 17
Jackrabbit, I agree with Bevin. Obama was really useful to the deep state because, as the "First Black President" he
was widely popular, not just inside the US but outside it as well. Before the 2016 election, there was a widespread hope
inside the US elite that Hillary Clinton, as the "First Woman President" would be able to serve a similar function in giving
US imperialism a pleasing face.
Trump, by contrast, hurts the US deep state because his true nature as a greedy, incompetent egotist is just too
blatantly obvious to too many people. And he won't follow a script, the way GW Bush usually did. That's why we see major
sections of the US deep state going out of their way to be publically hostile towards Trump.
Yes, their public rejection of Trump is partly motivated by the need to be able to claim that Trump is an aberration from
all previous US Presidents, as opposed to Trump and his policies being just a particularly explicit continuation of the same
underlying trends.
But I see no reason to doubt that the US elites really wish they had someone as President who was better at supplying the
right propaganda and less obviously an incompetent fool. So I don't understand why you think the US oligarchy and deep state
would have thought they needed someone like Trump, or would have greatly preferred him to Hillary Clinton.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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Although this profile says Virginia, tweets are from the Sofia, Bulgaria time zone and he writes in Russian. Another curiosity considering the Fancy Bear source code is in Russian. This image shows Crowdstrike in their network. Crowdstrike is part of Ukrainian nationalist hacker network. In the image it shows a network diagram of Crowdstrike following the Surkov leaks. The network communication goes through a secondary source.
Although OSINT Academy sounds fairly innocuous, it's the official twitter account for Ukraine's Ministry of Information head Dimitri Zolotukin. It is also Ukrainian Intelligence. The Ministry of Information started the Peacekeeper or Myrotvorets website that geolocates journalists and other people for assassination. If you disagree with OUNb politics, you could be on the list.
