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While Pompeo appointment was an astonishing display of political opportunism on the part of Trump (most probably Trump has "elevated" Pompeo, Bolton and Pence because he was forced to do so by those who financed his campaign), the appointment of Brennan's protégé Gina Haspel, who was instrumental in color revolution against Trump ( Haspel was in Britain and coordinated entrapment of members of Trump campaign ) was a complete capitulation. An, of cause, compete betrayal of his voters, especially anti-war republicans and independents.
It also stress the fact that in political hierarchy CIA stands above White House.
‘CIA Director Used Fake Skripal Incident Photos To Manipulate Trump’, b at MoA, April 16, 2019, a few snippets):
“An ass kissing portrait of Gina Haspel, torture queen and director of the CIA, reveals that she lied to Trump to push for more aggression against Russia.”
“Today the New York Times portraits Gina Haspel’s relation with Trump. The writers seem sympathetic to her and the CIA’s position. They include an anecdote of the Skripal expulsion decision that is supposed to let her shine in a good light. But it only proves that the CIA manipulated the president for its own purpose:
Last March, top national security officials gathered inside the White House to discuss with Mr. Trump how to respond to the nerve agent attack in Britain on Sergei V. Skripal, the former Russian intelligence agent.
London was pushing for the White House to expel dozens of suspected Russian operatives, but Mr. Trump was skeptical.
…
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the president that the “strong option” was to expel 60 diplomats.To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia’s attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
Ms Haspel was not the first to use emotional images to appeal to the president, but pairing it with her hard-nosed realism proved effective: Mr. Trump fixated on the pictures of the sickened children and the dead ducks. At the end of the briefing, he embraced the strong option.”
“The Skripal case was widely covered and we followed it diligently (scroll down). There were no reports of any children affected by ‘Novichok’ nor were their any reports of dead ducks. In the official storyline the Skripals, before visiting a restaurant, fed bread to ducks at a pond in the Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury. They also gave duck-bread to three children to do the same. The children were examined and their blood was tested. No poison was found and none of them fell ill. No duck died. (The duck feeding episode also disproves the claim that the Skripals were poisoned by touching a door handle.)”
Yes, b’s oeuvre on the Skripals might only be rivaled by Craig Murray’s.
If it quacks like a dead duck…it must be a dead Novichock duck, no?
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Jan 16, 2020 | www.nakedcapitalism.com
fajensen , , January 14, 2020 at 11:13 am
Gina Haspel? She is probably equally good with a handgun, an ice pick and a pair of pliers.
curious euro , , January 14, 2020 at 11:49 am
Is she effective? What has she done to make her a spy mastermind? She is obviously a torturer, but is that a qualification in any way useful to be a intelligence agency boss?
I have the suspicion Haspel was elevated to their office by threatening "I know where all the bodies are buried (literally) and if you don't make me boss, I will tell". Blackmail can helping a career lots if successful.
Thuto , , January 14, 2020 at 11:18 am
The outcomes of incompetence and malicious intent are sometimes indistinguishable from one another. With the people Trump has surrounded himself with, horrible, nasty outcomes are par for the course because these guys are both incompetent and chock full of malicious intent. Instead of draining the swamp, he's gone and filled it with psychotic sociopaths.
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Dec 29, 2019 | www.strategic-culture.org
Former US President Barack Obama is now in severe legal jeopardy, because the Russiagate investigation has turned 180 degrees; and he, instead of the current President, Donald Trump, is in its cross-hairs.The biggest crime that a US President can commit is to try to defeat American democracy (the Constitutional functioning of the US Government) itself, either by working with foreign powers to take it over, or else by working internally within America to sabotage democracy for his or her own personal reasons. Either way, it's treason (crime that is intended to, and does, endanger the continued functioning of the Constitution itself*), and Mr. Obama is now being actively investigated, as possibly having done this.
The Russiagate investigation, which had formerly focused against the current US President, has reversed direction and now targets the prior President. Although he, of course, cannot be removed from office (since he is no longer in office), he is liable under criminal laws, the same as any other American would be, if he committed any crime while he was in office.
A December 17th order by the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) Court severely condemned the performance by the FBI under Obama, for having obtained, on 19 October 2016 (even prior to the US Presidential election), from that Court, under false pretenses, an authorization for the FBI to commence investigating Donald Trump's Presidential campaign, as being possibly in collusion with Russia's Government. The Court's ruling said:
In order to appreciate the seriousness of that misconduct and its implications, it is useful to understand certain procedural and substantive requirements that apply to the government's conduct of electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. Title I of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA ), codified as amended at 50 USC. 1801-1813, governs such electronic surveillance. It requires the government to apply for and receive an order from the FISC approving a proposed electronic surveillance. When deciding whether to grant such an application, a FISC judge must determine among other things, whether it provides probable cause to believe that the proposed surveillance target is a "foreign power" or an agent a foreign power.
The government has a heightened duty of candor to the FISC in ex parte proceedings, that is, ones in which the government does not face an adverse party, such as proceedings on electronic surveillance applications. The FISC expects the government to comply with its heightened duty of candor in ex parte proceedings at all times. Candor is fundamental to this Court's effective operation.
On December 9, 2019, the government filed, with the FISC, public and classified versions of the OIG Report. It documents troubling instances in which FBI personnel provided information to NSD [National Security Division of the Department of Justice] which was unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession. It also describes several instances in which FBI personnel withheld from NSD information in their possession which was detrimental to their case for believing that Mr. [Carter] Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.
On December 18th, Martha McCallum, of Fox News, interviewed US Attorney General Bill Barr , and asked him (at 7:00 in the video ) how high up in the FBI the blame for this (possible treason) goes:
MACCALLUM: Were you surprised that he [Obama's FBI Director James Comey] seemed to give himself such a distance from the entire operation?
"JAMES COMEY: As the director sitting on top of an organization of 38,000 people you can't run an investigation that's seven layers below you. You have to leave it to the career professionals to do."
MACCALLUM: Do you believe that?
BARR: No, I think that the -- one of the problems with what happened was precisely that they pulled the investigation up to the executive floors, and it was run and bird dogged by a very small group of very high level officials. And the idea that this was seven layers below him is simply not true.
The current (Trump) A.G. there called the former (Obama) FBI Director a liar on that.
If Comey gets heat for this possibly lie-based FBI investigation of the US Presidential nominee from the opposite Party of the sitting US President (Comey's own boss, Obama), then protecting himself could become Comey's top motivation; and, in that condition, protecting his former boss might become only a secondary concern for him.
Moreover, as was first publicly reported by Nick Falco in a tweet on 5 June 2018 (which tweet was removed by Twitter but fortunately not before someone had copied it to a web archive ), the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign starting no later than 7 October 2015. An outside private contractor, Stefan Halper, was hired in Britain for this, perhaps in order to get around laws prohibiting the US Government from doing it. (This was 'foreign intelligence' work, after all. But was it really ? That's now being investigated.) The Office of Net Assessment (ONA) "through the Pentagon's Washington Headquarters Services, awarded him contracts from 2012 to 2016 to write four studies encompassing relations among the US, Russia, China and India" .
Though Halper actually did no such studies for the Pentagon, he instead functioned as a paid FBI informant (and it's not yet clear whether that money came from the Pentagon, which spends trillions of dollars that are off-the-books and untraceable ), and at some point Trump's campaign became a target of Halper's investigation. This investigation was nominally to examine "The Russia-China Relationship: The impact on US Security interests."
Allegedly, George Papadopoulos said that "Halper insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign" , and Papadopoulos was shocked at Halper's saying this. Probably because so much money at the Pentagon is untraceable, some of the crucial documentation on this investigation might never be found. For example, the Defense Department's Inspector General's 2 July 2019 report to the US Senate said "ONA personnel could not provide us any evidence that Professor Halper visited any of these locations, established an advisory group, or met with any of the specific people listed in the statement of work."
It seems that the Pentagon-contracted work was a cover-story, like pizza parlors have been for some Mafia operations. But, anyway, this is how America's 'democracy' actually functions . And, of course, America's Deep State works not only through governmental agencies but also through underworld organizations . That's just reality, not at all speculative. It's been this way for decades, at least since the time of Truman's Presidency (as is documented at that link).
Furthermore, inasmuch as this operation certainly involved Obama's CIA Director John Brennan and others, and not only top officials at the FBI, there is no chance that Comey would have been the only high official who was involved in it. And if Comey was involved, then he would have been acting in his own interest, and not only in his boss's -- and here's why: Comey would be expected to have been highly motivated to oppose Mr. Trump, because Trump publicly questioned whether NATO (the main international selling-arm for America's 'defense'-contractors) should continue to exist, and also because Comey's entire career had been in the service of America's Military-Industrial Complex, which is the reason why Comey's main lifetime income has been the tens of millions of dollars he has received via the revolving door between his serving the federal Government and his serving firms such as Lockheed Martin . For these people, restoring, and intensifying, and keeping up, the Cold War , is a very profitable business . It's called by some "the Military-Industrial Complex," and by others "the Deep State," but by any name it is simply agents of the billionaires who own and control US-based international corporations, such as General Dynamics and Chevron. As a governmental official, making decisions that are in the long-term interests of those investors is the likeliest way to become wealthy.
Consequently, Comey would have been benefitting himself, and other high officials of the Obama Administration, by sabotaging Trump's campaign, and by weakening Trump's Presidency in the event that he would become elected. Plus, of course, Comey would have been benefitting Obama himself. Not only was Trump constantly condemning Obama, but Obama had appointed to lead the Democratic National Committee during the 2016 Presidential primaries, Debbie Wasserman Schultz , who as early as 20 February 2007 had endorsed Hillary Clinton for President in the Democratic Party primaries, so that Shultz was one of the earliest supporters of Clinton against even Obama himself. In other words, Obama had appointed Shultz in order to increase the odds that Clinton -- not Sanders -- would become the nominee in 2016 to continue on and protect his own Presidential legacy. Furthermore, on 28 July 2016, Schultz became forced to resign from her leadership of the DNC after WikiLeaks released emails indicating that Schultz and other members of the DNC staff had exercised bias against Bernie Sanders and in favor of Hillary Clinton during the 2016 Democratic primaries -- which favoritism had been the reason why Obama had appointed Shultz to that post to begin with. She was just doing her job for the person who had chosen her to lead the DNC. Likewise for Comey. In other words: Comey was Obama's pick to protect Clinton, and to oppose Trump (who had attacked both Clinton and Obama).
Nowadays, Obama is telling the Party's billionaires that Elizabeth Warren would be good for them , but not that Sanders would -- he never liked Sanders. He wants Warren to get the voters who otherwise would go for Sanders, and he wants the Party's billionaires to help her achieve this (be the Party's allegedly 'progressive' option), so that Sanders won't be able to become a ballot option in the general election to be held on 3 November 2020.
He is telling them whom not to help win the Party's nomination. In fact, on November 26th, Huffington Post headlined "Obama Said He Would Speak Up To Stop Bernie Sanders Nomination: Report" and indicated that though he won't actually say this in public (but only to the Party's billionaires), Obama is determined to do all he can to prevent Sanders from becoming the nominee. In 2016, his choice was Hillary Clinton; but, today, it's anyone other than Sanders; and, so, in a sense, it remains what it was four years ago -- anyone but Sanders.
Comey's virtually exclusive concern, at the present stage, would be to protect himself, so that he won't be imprisoned. This means that he might testify against Obama. At this stage, he's free of any personal obligation to Obama -- Comey is now on his own, up against Trump, who clearly is his enemy. Some type of back-room plea-bargain is therefore virtually inevitable -- and not only with Comey, but with other top Obama-appointees, ultimately. Obama is thus clearly in the cross-hairs, from now on. Congressional Democrats have opted to gun against Trump (by impeaching him); and, so, Trump now will be gunning against Obama -- and against the entire Democratic Party (unless Sanders becomes its nominee, in which case, Sanders will already have defeated that Democratic Party, and its adherents will then have to choose between him versus Trump; and, so, too, will independent voters).
But, regardless of what happens, Obama now is in the cross-hairs. That's not just political cross-hairs (such as an impeachment process); it is, above all, legal cross-hairs (an actual criminal investigation). Whereas Trump is up against a doomed effort by the Democratic Party to replace him by Vice President Mike Pence, Obama will be up against virtually inevitable criminal charges, by the incumbent Trump Administration. Obama played hardball against Trump, with "Russiagate," and then with "Ukrainegate"; Trump will now play hardball against Obama, with whatever his Administration and the Republican Party manage to muster against Obama; and the stakes this time will be considerably bigger than just whether to replace Trump by Pence.
Whatever the outcome will be, it will be historic, and unprecedented. (If Sanders becomes the nominee, it will be even more so; and, if he then wins on November 3rd, it will be a second American Revolution; but, this time, a peaceful one -- if that's even possible, in today's hyper-partisan, deeply split, USA.)
There is no way that the outcome from this will be status-quo. Either it will be greatly increased further schism in the United States, or it will be a fundamental political realignment, more comparable to 1860 than to anything since.
The US already has a higher percentage of its people in prison than does any other nation on this planet. Americans who choose a 'status-quo' option will produce less stability, more violence, not more stability and a more peaceful nation in a less war-ravaged world. The 2020 election-outcome for the United States will be a turning-point; there is no way that it will produce reform.
Americans who vote for reform will be only increasing the likelihood of hell-on-Earth. Reform is no longer an available option, given America's realities. A far bigger leap than that will be required in order for this country to avoid falling into an utter abyss, which could be led by either Party, because both Parties have brought the nation to its present precipice, the dark and lightless chasm that it now faces, and which must now become leapt, in order to avoid a free-fall into oblivion.
The problem in America isn't either Obama or Trump; it's neither merely the Democratic Party, nor merely the Republican Party; it is instead both; it is the Deep State .
That's the reality; and the process that got us here started on 26 July 1945 and secretly continued on the American side even after the Soviet Union ended and Russia promptly ended its side of the Cold War. The US regime's ceaseless thrust, since 26 July 1945, to rule the entire world, will climax either in a Third World War, or in a US revolution to overthrow and remove the Deep State and end its dictatorship-grip over America. Both Parties have been controlled by that Deep State , and the final stage or climax of this grip is now drawing near. America thus has been having a string of the worst Presidents -- and worst Congresses -- in US history. This is today's reality.
Unfortunately, a lot of American voters think that this extremely destabilizing reality, this longstanding trend toward war, is okay, and ought to be continued, not ended now and replaced by a new direction for this country -- the path toward world peace, which FDR had accurately envisioned but which was aborted on 26 July 1945. No matter how many Americans might vote for mere reform, they are wrong. Sometimes, only a minority are right. Being correct is not a majority or minority matter; it is a true or false matter. A misinformed public can willingly participate in its own -- or even the world's -- destruction. That could happen.
Democracy is a prerequisite to peace, but it can't exist if the public are being systematically misinformed. Lies and democracy don't mix together any more effectively than do oil and water.
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Feb 16, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,
U.S. Attorney John Durham – charged with the criminal probe into the FBI's Russia investigation of the Trump campaign – has been questioning CIA officials closely involved with John Brennan's 2017 intelligence community assessment regarding direct Russian interference in the 2016 election, according to U.S. officials.
In May 2017, Brennan denied during a hearing before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence that its agency relied on the now debunked Christopher Steele dossier for the Intelligence Community Assessment report. He told then Congressman Trey Gowdy "we didn't" use the Steele dossier.
"It wasn't part of the corpus of intelligence information that we had," Brennan stated.
"It was not in any way used as a basis for the Intelligence Community assessment that was done. It was -- it was not."
However, DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz confirmed in his report that the dossier was used in the Obama administration's 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA). As stated in the IG report, there were discussions by top intelligence officials as to whether the Steele dossier should be included in the ICA report.
But upon careful inspection of Horowitz's report, on page 179, investigators ask former FBI Director James Comey if he discussed the dossier with Brennan and whether or not it should be given to President Obama. According to the report, Comey told investigators that Brennan said it was "important" enough to include in the ICA -- clearly part of the "corpus of intelligence information" they had.
According to a recent report by The New York Times, Durham's probe is specifically looking at that January 2017 intelligence community assessment, which concluded with "high confidence" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "ordered an influence campaign in 2016."
"Mr. Durham appears to be pursuing a theory that the C.I.A., under its former director John O. Brennan, had a preconceived notion about Russia or was trying to get to a particular result -- and was nefariously trying to keep other agencies from seeing the full picture lest they interfere with that goal, the people said."
Sources with knowledge have said CIA officials questioned by Durham's investigative team "are extremely concerned with the investigation and the direction it's heading."
Brennan's assessment stated that Putin wanted to "undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate former Secretary of State [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency." It also stated that Putin "developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump."
But not everyone agreed with Brennan. The NSA then under retired Adm. Mike Rogers stated it only had "moderate confidence" that Putin tried to help Trump's election. As stated in the New York times Durham is investigating whether Brennan was keeping other intelligence agencies out of the loop to keep his narrative that Putin was helping Trump's campaign public.
"I wouldn't call it a discrepancy, I'd call it an honest difference of opinion between three different organizations, and, in the end, I made that call," Rogers told the Senate in May 2017.
"It didn't have the same level of sourcing and the same level of multiple sources."
According to The Times Durham is reviewing emails from the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency analysts who worked on the January, 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment on Russia's interference in the election.
Durham's office could not be reached for comment. DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec also could not be reached for comment.
However, Brennan told MSNBC's "Hardball" last week, that Durham's questioning is dangerous.
Durham And FBI Spy Stefan Halper"It's kind of silly," he said.
"Is there a criminal investigation now on analytic judgments and the activities of C.I.A. in terms of trying to protect our national security? I'm certainly willing to talk to Mr. Durham or anybody else who has any questions about what we did during this period of 2016 ."
Durham's investigation appear to have many tentacles. For example, he has expanded his probe to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment. According to sources who spoke to SaraACarter.com he is carefully scrutinizing money paid through the office to former FBI confidential informant Cambridge academic Stefan Halper. Halper, who worked in previous U.S. administrations and is an academic, is connected to three of President Donald Trump's campaign officials that were wrapped up into the FBI's probe, most notably Carter Page.
Halper, along with others such as former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove, founded the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar, in England at Cambridge University. According to several sources, Durham has questioned officials at the Office of Net Assessment about Halper's contracts, how the money was utilized and what agency actually awarded the contract.
Further, Sen. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, is also investigating the over $1 million in contracts Halper received from the ONA, as first reported at SaraACarter.com. It is, of course, a separate investigation from Durham's but on the same issues.
The Office Of Net Assessment, according to sources with knowledge, is sometimes used as a front to pay contractors, like Halper, who are conducting work for U.S. intelligence agencies. It is for this reason, that Durham is investigating the flow of money that Halper received and whether or not agencies other than the FBI were involved in the investigation into Trump's campaign and whether or not, the contracts were accurately accounted for in the reports received by Grassley.
Durham's criminal investigation into the FBI , CIA, as well as private entities is ongoing. Known by its acronym ONA, the secretive office is run by Director James Baker, who has been in the role since being appointed by the Obama Administration in 2015. In a January letter to Baker, Grassley asks a litany of questions as to Halper's role within ONA, his contracts, his foreign contacts and whether the FBI, or CIA, used the ONA office to pay Halper for spying on Trump campaign personnel.
"Can ONA state for certain that Halper did not use taxpayer money provided by DoD to recruit, or attempt to recruit, sources for the FBI investigation into the now-debunked theory of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia," Grassley asks Baker.
But it is Halper's role overseas and concern that the CIA may have been involved that is leading to more questions than answers. In 2016, in what appeared to be an unexpected move, Halper left the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar. He told papers in London – at the time – that it was due to "unacceptable Russian influence."
Ironically, documents obtained by SaraACarter.com suggest that during Halper's tenure with the seminar, he had also invited senior Russian intelligence officials to co-teach his course on several occasions. Further, according to news reports, he also accepted money to finance the course from a top Russian oligarch with ties to Putin.
Several course syllabi from 2012 and 2015 obtained by this outlet reveal Hapler had invited and co-taught his course on intelligence with the former Director of Russian Intelligence Gen. I. Vyacheslav Trubnikov.
Moreover, the New York Times recent report suggests that Durham's probe into Brennan is also looking closely at an alleged secret source said to have direct ties to the Kremlin. It is not certain if the same secret Kremlin source discussed by Brennan is the same source used by Halper in his reports.
However, there is evidence that Halper had similar sources to former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the dossier. Based on hand written notes from an interview the State Department's Kathleen Kavalec states two of Steele's dossier sources; "Trubnikov" and "Surkov."
Interesting, isn't it.
Surkov is Vladislav Surkov, an aide of Vladimir Putin who is on the U.S.'s list of sanctioned individuals, and Trubnikov is none other than Vyacheslav Trubnikov. Trubnikov was the First Deputy of Foreign Minister of Russia and he formally served as the Director of Foreign Intelligence Service. He is also a source of Halper.
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Jan 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Russiagate Spy Paid $1 Million By Obama Was WaPo Deep Throat by Tyler Durden Thu, 01/23/2020 - 19:44 0 SHARES
Stephan Halper, the longtime CIA and FBI operative who conducted espionage on the 2016 Trump campaign, was feeding information to Washington Post reporter David Ignatius through his handler , according to The Federalist , which describes his actions as "more evidence that the intelligence community has co-opted the press to push anti-Trump conspiracy theories."
According to a court filing by Michael Flynn's defense team, Halper's 'handler' in the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), Col. James Baker, "regularly lunched with the Washington Post reporter."
(Also leaking to Ignatius was Christopher Steele )
As we noted in May of 2018 , Halper was paid over $1 million by the Obama administration through the Office of Net Assessment - nearly half of which came during 'Russiagate' - in which he not only surveilled multiple Trump campaign aides, he was involved in an effort to tie General Flynn to a Russian academic, Svetlana Lokhova, as part of a smear campaign.
Svetlana Lokhova, the Russian-born English citizen and Soviet-era scholar, told The Federalist that she only realized the significance of her communications with and about Ignatius following the filing of attorney Sidney Powell's reply brief in the Michael Flynn case.
In last week's court filing, Powell highlighted how the CIA, FBI, Halper , and possibly James Baker used the unnamed and unaware Lokhova and the complicit Ignatius to destroy Flynn . This James Baker is not the one who worked under James Comey at the FBI, but a James Baker in the Department of Defense Office of National Assessment. - The Federalist
Powell wrote:
Stefan Halper is a known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI. He was paid exorbitant sums by the FBI/CIA/DOD through the Department of Defense Department's Office of Net Assessment in 2016. His tasks seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent) Flynn met at an official dinner at Cambridge University when he was head of DIA in 2014. Flynn has requested the records of Col. James Baker because he was Halper's 'handler' in the Office of Net Assessment in the Pentagon, and ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius. Baker is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls to Ignatius . The defense has requested the phone records of James Clapper to confirm his contacts with Washington Post reporter Ignatius -- especially on January 10, 2017, when Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.' It cannot escape mention that the press has long had transcripts of the Kislyak calls that the government has denied to the defense.
Lokhova sued Halper and multiple MSM outlets for defamation after Halper-fuelled rumors that she was a Russian spy who had 'honeypotted' Flynn, which were first promoted by Lokhova's mentor at Cambridge University - Professor Christopher Andrew, who wrote in the London Sunday Times in February 2017 that her brief meeting with Flynnn during a 2015 dinner event was the beginning of the former National Security Adviser's relationship with a Russian spy.
Prior to Andrew's article, other outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and the New York Times had published rumors of a Flynn connection to a supposed Russian spy, however Lokhova had no clue it was her until she was outed.
"Halper had been pushing the story that I was a Russian spy and Flynn's mistress since December of 2016," Lokhova told The Federalist . "The New York Times' Mathew Rosenberg told me a source had been circulating these stories since December 2016," she said, adding "but they held the story until they could find a second source and someone at the Cambridge dinner."
Via The FederalistIn his book " The Plot Against the President ," Lee Smith confirms that the story about a Flynn-Lokhova intrigue was circulated to the press starting in December 2016.
But it wasn't until the Wall Street Journal published its March 17, 2017, article suggesting she had inappropriate contacts with Flynn that Lokhova discovered the earlier article Andrew had written about her for the Sunday Times , Lokhova said. Before then, within days of February 28, 2017, several journalists reached out to her for comment, including two working for the Wall Street Journal, but Lokhova didn't know why .
She also didn't comprehend who the inquiring journalists were at the time. That remained true even after her mentor and unknown betrayer, Andrew, wrote Lokhova telling her that "David Ignatius of Washington Post is in UK at moment. I've known him for years and trust him. I've given him your email and he accepts that if you don't wish to respond, that an end to it." - The Federalist
It is unknown what Andrew meant by Ignatius's "inside track," however the above email was sent to Lokhova just one month after Ignatus reported the illegally leaked details of Flynn's conversation with Russia's ambassador - leading to his firing .
Read the rest of the report here .
Soloamber , 4 hours ago link
The biggest coup attempt in USA history and most of the media pump the tires of an impeachment scam
going no where .
The Democrat hate machine never thought they were going to get caught . WRONG .
But of course they "didn't intend to " spy on , frame , slander and lie for over 3 years
about their actions .
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Jan 21, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com
Svetlana Lokhova is suing numerous media outlets, as well as FBI informant Stefan Halper, for defamation and tells The Sara Carter Show that she was used as a target of opportunity by the FBI in an attempt to discredit former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and target President Donald Trump.
https://omny.fm/shows/the-sara-carter-show/svetlana-lokhova-money-trail-of-fbi-spy-will-expos/embed
Lokhova, a Russian born British scholar, calls Halper "the dirty trickster."
She says his past connections to these agencies and the FBI is a 'big tell' as to why he was used to used to gather information on the Trump campaign.
"So you have 17 intelligence agencies in the United States with an $80 billion budget you have thousands if not tens of thousands of trained people working for your intelligence services and, yet, they seek out this complete outsider (Halper) right he's not a trained investigator," she says, describing Halper as an overweight 74 year old.
"He's somebody whose known... has a history of being involved in every single scandal for over forty years," said Lokhova. She says Halper's money trail is the answer.
Lokhova isn't the only one.
Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's sent a letter last year demanding answers on Halper's contracts and the Office of Net Assessment. Grassley sent the request in a letter to Department of Defense Acting Secretary Mark Esper, after a Pentagon Inspector General investigation discovered that the office failed to conduct appropriate oversight of the contracts. Grassley urged Esper for the information.
According to Grassley's office it is currently reviewing information sent from the Pentagon.
"The committee is currently reviewing information received recently from the Pentagon, in response to Grassley's request," Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the committee, said in an earlier interview with this news site. Foy confirmed Grassley is continuing to investigate the matter.
According to the DoD Inspector General's report the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) " did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper; therefore, ONA CORs could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We determined that while the ONA CORs established a file to maintain documents, they did not maintain sufficient documentation to comply with all the FAR requirements related to having a complete COR."
Lokhova tells me at length about the erroneous and inaccurate articles published about her and Flynn. She says it turned her life upside down. She also discusses the toll the lawsuits are taking on her family financially and why she intends to keep on fighting.
Lokhova goes into lengthy details about the malicious targeting operation against her. She says the DOJ must examine Halper's financial trail that began at the Office of Net Assessment at the Pentagon. This, she says, will expose the Russia Hoax Origins.
Halper was used to spread malicious lies about her in an operation that utilized her brief encounter with Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn at a dinner 2014 at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar as a way of spreading malicious lies about her, she said.
She has filed numerous lawsuits in the federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, and is seeking more than $25 million in damages from Halper, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and MSNBC.
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Dec 22, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Patrick Armstrong , 21 December 2019 at 09:08 AM
Speaking of "Putin's niece", this, from the Daily Beast is a reminder of how all this crap was spun. Worth a read given what we all know now.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/putins-niece-catfished-george-papadopoulos-offered-kremlin-meeting
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Jul 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Which brings me to the newest piece to drop, CrowdStrikeOut: Mueller's Own Report Undercuts Its Core Russia Meddling Claims .
Most of the material in this article will be familiar to regular readers of SST because I wrote about it first. Here are the key conclusions:
- The report uses qualified and vague language to describe key events, indicating that Mueller and his investigators do not actually know for certain whether Russian intelligence officers stole Democratic Party emails, or how those emails were transferred to WikiLeaks.
- The report's timeline of events appears to defy logic. According to its narrative, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange announced the publication of Democratic Party emails not only before he received the documents but before he even communicated with the source that provided them.
- There is strong reason to doubt Mueller's suggestion that an alleged Russian cutout called Guccifer 2.0 supplied the stolen emails to Assange.
- Mueller's decision not to interview Assange – a central figure who claims Russia was not behind the hack – suggests an unwillingness to explore avenues of evidence on fundamental questions.
- U.S. intelligence officials cannot make definitive conclusions about the hacking of the Democratic National Committee computer servers because they did not analyze those servers themselves. Instead, they relied on the forensics of CrowdStrike, a private contractor for the DNC that was not a neutral party, much as "Russian dossier" compiler Christopher Steele, also a DNC contractor, was not a neutral party. This puts two Democrat-hired contractors squarely behind underlying allegations in the affair – a key circumstance that Mueller ignores.
- Further, the government allowed CrowdStrike and the Democratic Party's legal counsel to submit redacted records, meaning CrowdStrike and not the government decided what could be revealed or not regarding evidence of hacking.
- Mueller's report conspicuously does not allege that the Russian government carried out the social media campaign. Instead it blames, as Mueller said in his closing remarks, "a private Russian entity" known as the Internet Research Agency (IRA).
- Mueller also falls far short of proving that the Russian social campaign was sophisticated, or even more than minimally related to the 2016 election. As with the collusion and Russian hacking allegations, Democratic officials had a central and overlooked hand in generating the alarm about Russian social media activity.
- John Brennan, then director of the CIA, played a seminal and overlooked role in all facets of what became Mueller's investigation: the suspicions that triggered the initial collusion probe; the allegations of Russian interference; and the intelligence assessment that purported to validate the interference allegations that Brennan himself helped generate. Yet Brennan has since revealed himself to be, like CrowdStrike and Steele, hardly a neutral party -- in fact a partisan with a deep animus toward Trump.
I encourage you to read the piece. It is well written and provides an excellent overview of critical events in the flawed investigation.
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Nov 27, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Christopher Hull via The Epoch Times,
The Obama holdover heading the Pentagon office reportedly under investigation by the U.S. attorney who is conducting the criminal probe of the Trump -- Russia investigation was accused of leaking a classified document, in a recent court filing for retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn.
The connection hasn't been previously reported.
According to a Nov. 21 report by independent journalist Sara Carter, U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA). ONA awarded about $1 million in contracts to FBI informant Stefan Halper, who appears to have played a key role in alleged U.S. intelligence agency spying on 2016 Trump campaign advisers Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
In addition, however, a court filing indicates that ONA's director, James H. Baker, "is believed to be the person who illegally leaked the transcript of Mr. Flynn's calls" to The Washington Post. Specifically, the filing states, "ONA Director Baker regularly lunched with Washington Post Reporter David Ignatius."
The filing adds that Baker "was Halper's 'handler'" at ONA. Moreover, according to the court filing, the tasks assigned to "known long-time operative for the CIA/FBI" Halper "seem to have included slandering Mr. Flynn with accusations of having an affair with a young professor (a British national of Russian descent)."
Baker didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The filing notes that Flynn's defense team has requested phone records for then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper , likewise in order to confirm contacts with Ignatius. The filing singles out records for Jan. 10, 2017, when, according to the filing, "Clapper told Ignatius in words to the effect of 'take the kill shot on Flynn.'"
Clapper didn't respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times as of press time.
The Pentagon's current inspector general has already found that Baker's office "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper." As a result, according to the inspector general, ONA staff "could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations."
Acting Pentagon Inspector General Glenn A. Fine in November 2017 started an investigation into charges that Baker retaliated against a whistleblower who red-flagged "rigged" contracts, including Halper's. Another $11 million in contracts under scrutiny went to the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG), which is run by a schoolmate of Chelsea Clinton, whom she has referred to as her "best friend."
According to the whistleblower's attorney, "Baker's interest was his awareness of the LTSG-Clinton connection; his presumptive desire to exploit that to his advantage in the event of a Clinton election win; and the fact that contractors like LTSG served as a lucrative landing pad for ONA retirees."
The attorney charged that Baker's claims about the whistleblower were "demonstrably false," calling Baker "partisan and highly vindictive."
At the time, Richard Perle, Ronald Reagan's former Assistant Secretary of Defense, called Baker "a shallow and manipulative character that should have gone with the change in administration." Perle further charged that the whistleblower "clearly was the target, for political reasons, of an effort to push him out of government," saying "he's a Trump loyalist, and it was launched and sustained by an Obama holdover."
That inquiry is being carried out by the inspector general's Investigations of Senior Officials Directorate.
Raising additional questions, a 2016 report further revealed that the ONA had failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to conduct for more than 10 years, even with a yearly budget approaching $20 million.
Baker was named as ONA director on May 14, 2015, during the Obama administration. A contemporaneous report called his appointment "part of a wave of new Pentagon personnel moves in recent days, senior-level officials who will outlast President Obama's final term in office." Baker replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed "Yoda" for his "wizened appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature." Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, "passed over several of Marshall's acolytes who were in the running for the position."
The House Judiciary and Oversight committees -- which interviewed almost two dozen witnesses -- concluded in December 2018 that the Obama Justice Department treated Trump and Clinton unequally, affording Clinton and her associates extraordinary accommodations, while potentially abusing surveillance powers to investigate Trump's associates.
Jacqueline Deal, president of LTSG, wrote in an email to The Epoch Times: "My colleagues and I began performing work in support of the Office of Net Assessment during the George W. Bush administration, over a decade before the office's current director was appointed. None of the awards received by LTSG from the Department of Defense resulted directly or indirectly from the actions or influence of Secretary [Hillary] Clinton. Any statement or implication otherwise is false."
my new username , 2 minutes ago link
KuriousKat , 1 hour ago linkThe Bush and Clinton families are joined at their corrupt hips.
The ONA is a CIA slush fund.
steelframe7 , 1 hour ago linkBaker replaced Andrew W. Marshall, nicknamed “Yoda” for his “wizened appearance, fanatical following in defense circles, and enigmatic nature.” Obama Defense Secretary Ash Carter, in selecting Baker, “passed over several of Marshall’s acolytes who were in the running for the position.”
Holy ****...The replacement head of the Highlands Group..he may as well be that white bearded guy in the matrix.. Hes the director of the MIC CIA NSA. ..the whole ball of wax..puts it all together...only he is not Yoda like before him..like putting a restaurant fast food manager in charge of the manhattan project. I know those acolytes must be really pissed..and probably a potential source of leaks.
Investigations my eye! This has been going on since Moby **** was a minnow.
McCabe has been out there making money while under criminal referral.. That investigation is DONE and still nothing happens.
The public information available on at least 50 of these double dealers is enough to send them all up the river as of a few YEARS ago...but we have to have more investigations...that's so they can figure out how to cover it all up.
Fire these creeps. Hire Sidney Powell.. They'll be swinging inside of six months.
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Nov 23, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Authored by Sara Carter via SaraACarter.com,
Justice Department prosecutor U.S. Attorney John Durham is questioning personnel connected to the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment, which awarded multiple contracts to FBI informant Stephan Halper. Halper, who was informing the bureau on Trump campaign advisors, is a central figure in the FBI's original investigation into President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, SaraACarter.com has learned.
These latest developments reveal the expansive nature of what is now a Justice Department criminal probe into the FBI's investigation into the Trump campaign. The revelation also comes on the heels of DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz's report regarding the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, announced to Fox News' Sean Hannity Wednesday night the lengthy investigative report will be released to the public on Dec., 9.
DOJ Attorney General William Barr, who appointed Durham, is conducting a separate investigation alongside Horowitz's probe. Both investigations are examining how U.S. intelligence agencies began investigating now debunked ties between Russia and Trump campaign personnel in the 2016 presidential election.
Multiple sources confirmed to this news site that Durham has spoken extensively with sources working in the Office of Net Assessment, as well as outside contractors, that were paid through Pentagon office.
Department of Justice officials declined to comment on Durham's probe.
In 2016, Halper was an integral part of the FBI's investigation into short-term Trump campaign volunteer, Carter Page and George Papadopolous . Halper first made contact with Page at his seminar in July 2016. Page, who was already on the FBI's radar, was accused at the time of being sympathetic to Russia. Halper stayed in contact with Page until September 2017.
During that time, the FBI sought and obtained a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on Page and used Halper to collect information on him, according to sources. It is further alleged that Halper may have secretly recorded his conversations with Page and Papadopolous. Some congressional officials believe that if recordings exist they were kept from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and would be exculpatory evidence that would've exonerated Page from the FISA warrant and allegations that Papadopolous was attempting to seek any help from the Russians with regard to Hillary Clinton's emails.
In an interview with Papadopolous earlier this year, he told this reporter that he was shocked when Halper insinuated to him that Russia was helping the Trump campaign. Papadopolous said that he told him, "he didn't have any idea what the hell he was talking about that would be treason and I have nothing to do with that."
Grassley's Office Gets Pentagon DocsMoreover, this news site has learned that the Pentagon has finally sent Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley's committee the information it requested in July, regarding Halper's contracts and the Office of Net Assessment. Grassley sent the request in a letter to Department of Defense Acting Secretary Mark Esper, after a Pentagon Inspector General investigation discovered that the office failed to conduct appropriate oversight of the contracts. Grassley urged Esper for the information.
According to the DoD Inspector General's report the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) Contracting Officer's Representatives (CORs) "did not maintain documentation of the work performed by Professor Halper or any communication that ONA personnel had with Professor Halper; therefore, ONA CORs could not provide sufficient documentation that Professor Halper conducted all of his work in accordance with applicable laws and regulations. We determined that while the ONA CORs established a file to maintain documents, they did not maintain sufficient documentation to comply with all the FAR requirements related to having a complete COR."
Although, Grassley stated that he wanted the information no later than July 25, the Pentagon delivered the information only last week.
Grassley's office didn't elaborate on what information was given to the committee but confirmed that it was in the process of reviewing hundreds of pages of documents.
"The committee is currently reviewing information received recently from the Pentagon, in response to Grassley's request," said Taylor Foy, a spokesman for the committee. Foy confirmed Grassley is continuing to investigate the matter.
Pentagon officials did not immediately respond to calls and emails. ( SaraACarter.com will update this story if they so chose to respond. )
The Pentagon AuditGrassley's July letter stated that "shockingly, the audit found that these types of discrepancies were not unique to contracts with Professor Halper, which indicates ONA must take immediate steps to shore up its management and oversight of the contracting process."
"Accordingly, no later than July 25, 2019, please explain to the Committee the steps DoD has taken to address the recommendations that DoD IG made with respect to ONA's contracting procedures and produce to the Committee all records related to Professor Halper's contracts with DoD," Grassley's letter stated. "In addition, I request that ONA provide a briefing to my Committee staff regarding the Halper contracts."
The 74-year old professor, has rarely spoken out publicly since being outed by The Washington Post, and other news organizations, as one of the informants for the bureau who spied on the Trump campaign. He spent a career developing top-level government connections–not just through academia, as he did in Great Britain through the Cambridge Security Initiative, but through his connections in both the CIA and British MI-6. He is expected to be speaking this month at the seminar, he helped found, according to The Daily Caller.
"The results of this audit are disappointing and illustrate a systemic failure to manage and oversee the contracting process," stated the Senator in the letter sent July, 12 to the DOD. "Time and again, DoD's challenges with contract management and oversight are put on display. It is far past time the largest, most critical agency in this country steps up and takes immediate action to increase its efforts to stop waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer dollars."
The Office of Net Assessment came under fire in 2016, when Bill Gertz, a columnist for The Washington Times, revealed that it failed to produce the top-secret net assessments the office was established to do for more than a decade, despite its then nearly $20 million annual budget.
In August, a Pentagon Inspector General report revealed that the office failed to document the research Halper had conducted for the Pentagon in four separate studies worth roughly $1 million. The inspector general's report revealed that loose contracting practices at the office and failed oversight was to blame.
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Aug 22, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Halper
Halper has links to the CIA and MI6. He also served in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations.
Halper met with Carter Page, a volunteer adviser to the Trump campaign, at a Cambridge symposium held on July 11 and 12, 2016. Page had just returned from a trip to Russia a few days prior and said he remained in contact with Halper for a number of months after that.
Page's trip became the core subject of the Steele dossier -- a collection of unsubstantiated claims about Trump-Russia collusion put together by former MI6 agent Christopher Steele that was paid for by Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier was used by the FBI as the core evidence to obtain from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court a warrant to spy on Page several weeks before the presidential election
On Sept. 2, 2016, Halper also contacted George Papadopoulos, another Trump campaign aide, and offered $3,000 and a paid trip to London to write a paper about a gas field in the Mediterranean Sea. Papadopoulos accepted the offer and flew to London, where he met Halper and his assistant.
On Aug. 31 or Sept. 1, 2016, Halper also met with Trump campaign co-Chairman Sam Clovis in Northern Virginia and offered help to the Trump campaign with foreign policy, The Washington Post reported .
Halper's concern about Lokhova is portrayed as feigned in her complaint, since he seemed to have shown no concern for about two years after the 2014 Flynn meeting, only showing concern after Flynn started to aid Trump.
In fact, Halper appears himself to be rather close to Russian intelligence, having invited Vladimir Trubnikov, former director of Russian intelligence, to teach at CIS at least twice -- in 2012 and in 2015 -- according to the complaint. Trubnikov obliged him both times.
Between 2012 and 2017, Halper was paid more than a $1 million by the Office of Net Assessment, a strategy think tank that falls directly under the U.S. secretary of defense.
Adam Lovinger, an analyst at the think tank, raised alarm about the contracts to Halper, but was punished for it , according to his lawyer.
FlynnFlynn was one of the most consequential post-9/11 intelligence officials in the world.
"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person as his energy and skill at harnessing the Intelligence Community into a focused effort was literally historic," wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's 2007 performance review.
At the time, Flynn headed intelligence at the Joint Special Operations Command.
Mulholland, himself a former special forces officer, called Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any service serving today."
In 2014, however, he was forced into retirement over disagreements with the Obama administration.
More than a year ago, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to two FBI agents about conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that took place when former President Barack Obama imposed additional sanctions on Russia in December 2016.
He also pleaded guilty to lying about asking Russia to vote against or delay the vote on a U.N. Security Council resolution.
Finally, he pleaded guilty to lying about his foreign lobbying disclosures regarding the extent to which his work benefiting the Turkish government was overseen by that government. Foreign lobbying paperwork violations are seldom prosecuted. Flynn said the work started in August 2016; he shut down his lobbying firm in November 2016.
In March, Flynn asked a federal judge to delay his sentencing to give him more time to continue in his cooperation with a case in Virginia against two of his former associates, who face charges for concealing that they lobbied in the United States on behalf of Turkey.
Flynn has extensively cooperated with government prosecutors on multiple investigations and further cooperation will give him yet more grounds to ask for a lenient sentence. Even before the delay, the prosecutors were asking for a lenient sentence, including no prison time, while the defense wanted no more than a year of probation and community service.
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Aug 21, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
As the Russiagate circus attempts to quietly disappear over the horizon, with Democrats preferring to shift the anti-Trump narrative back to "racist", "white supremacist", "xenophobe", and the mainstream media ready to squawk "recession"; the Trump administration may have a few more cards up its sleeve before anyone claims the higher ground in this farce we call an election campaign.
As The Hill's John Solomon details, in September 2018 that President Trump told my Hill.TV colleague Buck Sexton and me that he would order the release of all classified documents showing what the FBI, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and other U.S. intelligence agencies may have done wrong in the Russia probe.
And while it's been almost a year since then, of feet-dragging and cajoling and deep-state-fighting, we wonder, given Solomon's revelations below, if the president is getting ready to play his 'Trump' card.
Here are the documents that Solomon believes have the greatest chance of rocking Washington, if declassified:
1.) Christopher Steele 's confidential human source reports at the FBI. These documents, known in bureau parlance as 1023 reports, show exactly what transpired each time Steele and his FBI handlers met in the summer and fall of 2016 to discuss his anti-Trump dossier. The big reveal, my sources say, could be the first evidence that the FBI shared sensitive information with Steele, such as the existence of the classified Crossfire Hurricane operation targeting the Trump campaign. It would be a huge discovery if the FBI fed Trump-Russia intel to Steele in the midst of an election, especially when his ultimate opposition-research client was Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). The FBI has released only one or two of these reports under FOIA lawsuits and they were 100 percent redacted. The American public deserves better.
2.) The 53 House Intel interviews. House Intelligence interviewed many key players in the Russia probe and asked the DNI to declassify those interviews nearly a year ago, after sending the transcripts for review last November. There are several big reveals, I'm told, including the first evidence that a lawyer tied to the Democratic National Committee had Russia-related contacts at the CIA.
3.) The Stefan Halper documents. It has been widely reported that European-based American academic Stefan Halper and a young assistant, Azra Turk, worked as FBI sources . We know for sure that one or both had contact with targeted Trump aides like Carter Page and George Papadopoulos at the end of the election. My sources tell me there may be other documents showing Halper continued working his way to the top of Trump's transition and administration, eventually reaching senior advisers like Peter Navarro inside the White House in summer 2017. These documents would show what intelligence agencies worked with Halper, who directed his activity, how much he was paid and how long his contacts with Trump officials were directed by the U.S. government's Russia probe.
4.) The October 2016 FBI email chain. This is a key document identified by Rep. Nunes and his investigators. My sources say it will show exactly what concerns the FBI knew about and discussed with DOJ about using Steele's dossier and other evidence to support a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant targeting the Trump campaign in October 2016. If those concerns weren't shared with FISA judges who approved the warrant, there could be major repercussions.
5.) Page/Papadopoulos exculpatory statements. Another of Nunes' five buckets, these documents purport to show what the two Trump aides were recorded telling undercover assets or captured in intercepts insisting on their innocence. Papadopoulos told me he told an FBI undercover source in September 2016 that the Trump campaign was not trying to obtain hacked Clinton documents from Russia and considered doing so to be treason. If he made that statement with the FBI monitoring, and it was not disclosed to the FISA court, it could be another case of FBI or DOJ misconduct.
6.) The 'Gang of Eight' briefing materials. These were a series of classified briefings and briefing books the FBI and DOJ provided key leaders in Congress in the summer of 2018 that identify shortcomings in the Russia collusion narrative. Of all the documents congressional leaders were shown, this is most frequently cited to me in private as having changed the minds of lawmakers who weren't initially convinced of FISA abuses or FBI irregularities.
7.) The Steele spreadsheet. I wrote recently that the FBI kept a spreadsheet on the accuracy and reliability of every claim in the Steele dossier. According to my sources, it showed as much as 90 percent of the claims could not be corroborated, were debunked or turned out to be open-source internet rumors. Given Steele's own effort to leak intel in his dossier to the media before Election Day, the public deserves to see the FBI's final analysis of his credibility. A document I reviewed recently showed the FBI described Steele's information as only "minimally corroborated" and the bureau's confidence in him as "medium."
8.) The Steele interview. It has been reported, and confirmed, that the DOJ's inspector general (IG) interviewed the former British intelligence operative for as long as 16 hours about his contacts with the FBI while working with Clinton's opposition research firm, Fusion GPS. It is clear from documents already forced into the public view by lawsuits that Steele admitted in the fall of 2016 that he was desperate to defeat Trump , had a political deadline to make his dirt public, was working for the DNC/Clinton campaign and was leaking to the news media. If he told that to the FBI and it wasn't disclosed to the FISA court, there could be serious repercussions.
9.) The redacted sections of the third FISA renewal application. This was the last of four FISA warrants targeting the Trump campaign; it was renewed in June 2017 after special counsel Robert Mueller 's probe had started, and signed by then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein . It is the one FISA application that House Republicans have repeatedly asked to be released, and I'm told the big reveal in the currently redacted sections of the application is that it contained both misleading information and evidence of intrusive tactics used by the U.S. government to infiltrate Trump's orbit.
10.) Records of allies' assistance. Multiple sources have said a handful of U.S. allies overseas – possibly Great Britain, Australia and Italy – were asked to assist FBI efforts to check on Trump connections to Russia. Members of Congress have searched recently for some key contact documents with British intelligence . My sources say these documents might help explain Attorney General Bill Barr's recent comments that "the use of foreign intelligence capabilities and counterintelligence capabilities against an American political campaign, to me, is unprecedented and it's a serious red line that's been crossed."
These documents, when declassified, would show more completely how a routine counterintelligence probe was hijacked to turn the most awesome spy powers in America against a presidential nominee in what was essentially a political dirty trick orchestrated by Democrats.
rahrog , 2 minutes ago link
LibertyVibe , 3 minutes ago linkAmerica's Ruling Class is laughing at all you fools still falling for the Rs v Ds scam.
Stupid people lose.
Lord Raglan , 5 minutes ago linkI disagree with Solomon. Nothing will "doom" the swamp unless the righteous few are willing to indict, prosecute and carry out sentencing for the guilty. Exposing the guilty accomplishes nothing, because anyone paying attention already knows of their crimes. Those who want to believe lies will still believe them after the truth comes out.
It's ALL A WASTE OF TIME unless we follow through.TheFQ , 16 minutes ago linkWhere's all the other, earlier docs Trump was going to declassify? Just wondering..............
benb , 12 minutes ago linkDoes anyone see a pattern here after the 2009 Tea Party movement began?
2009 - Republicans: "If we win back the House, we can accomplish our agenda."
2011 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House)
2012 - Republicans: "If we win back the Senate, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 2 YEARS After winning back the House)
2013 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 1 YEAR after winning back the House and the Senate)
2014 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 2 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2015 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 3 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2016 - Republicans: "If we win back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: 4 YEARS after winning back the House and the Senate)
2017 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 6 YEARS AGO and the Senate 4 YEARS AGO)
2018 - Republicans: "Now that we've won back the Presidency, we can accomplish our agenda." (NOTE: After winning back the House 7 YEARS AGO and the Senate 5 YEARS AGO)
2019 - John Solomon - "If Trump Declassifies These 10 Documents, Democrats Are Doomed"
I hate to say it, but I DON'T BELIEVE YOU, JOHN.
ALL WE HAVE HEARD OVER THE COURSE OF THIS DECADE IS "IF THIS HAPPENS...THEN THEY ARE DOOMED / WE CAN ACCOMPLISH OUR AGENDA / YADDA YADDA YADDA.
WHEN THE FOLLOWING ARE FOUND GUILTY OF TREASON, THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL I BELIEVE YOU:
- CLINTONS
- OBAMA
- BIDEN
- KERRY
- BRENNAN
- CLAPPER
- COMEY
- MCCABE
- MUELLER
- WEISSMAN
- STRZOK
- RICE
- POWERS
- LYNCH
- YATES
- ET AL
WHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?
WTF?
FFS...
enfield0916 , 36 minutes ago linkWHY ARE THESE TREASONOUS, VILE, CORRUPT CRIMINALS NOT INDICTED FOR TREASON?
Because the people doing the indicting are in on it.
As if there's any major philosophical difference between the Librtads and Zionist Cocksuckvatives.
Both sides use the .gov agencies to subvert and ignore the Constitution whenever possible. Best example is WikiLeaks and how each party wished Assange would just go away when he revealed damaging information about both sides on multiple occasions.
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Jul 09, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Flavius -> Turcopolier... ,
Bill H , 08 July 2019 at 10:08 AMI would guess that the Bureau Agents had to be read in on what the Agency people had been doing with Halper and possibly Mifsud,; that, and to bring their purported counter-intelligence expertise to bear. Active investigation in the UK with respect to Papadopolis was in prospect, probably to include tech surveillance, and the Bureau has no authority to conduct active independent investigation overseas.
Halper, such as he could be called a source at all, appears to have been, has to have been, working in the UK with Agency people and almost certainly with MI6 as well.
If NSA was there in the UK, it was with a view to coordinating tech; but with that said, it would be highly irregular for our people to be conducting active investigation, especially if it included physical and technical surveillance, without coordinating at some level with MI6 and 5 as well.
If John Brennan was not there at the genesis of this fiasco, I will eat my hat; and I cannot see how there weren't high level officials at MI6 engaged as well .
Halper is working in the UK with the Agency in re Russia and not working with the Russia obsessed MI6? Similarly, Steele is dredging for Russian dirt wherever he can get it and he's sealed himself off from his former employer? Not likely.
JamesT -> Bill H ... , 08 July 2019 at 03:05 PMThe one thing which overwhelms all else is the actual nature of the material that came from the DNC servers and appeared on Wikileaks. A great deal of noise is made about that information's journey, who stole (hacked or copied) it, how it was done, who transmitted it, etc. But no noise whatever is made about the information itself, or at least when an attempt is made it is buried by the "Russia meddled" noise.
The information itself is that the DNC is a bad actor, that it rigged the primary election for Hillary Clinton. No one, no one , denies the truth of the information itself. When what the DNC did is mentioned the conversation instantly changes to the Russians having "meddled in our election."
Buried in the noise is that the DNC meddled in the electoral process far more destructively and far more directly than the Rusians did, if the Russians did so at all, which I perceive as highly doubtful.
pretzelattack , 08 July 2019 at 02:00 PMBill H - I could not agree with you more.
Barbara Ann , 08 July 2019 at 02:00 PMi'm not familiar with all the intricate details of the "investigation" (i just detect a strong smell of bs coming from mueller), and I found this piece hard to follow on the page-strzok texts and their significance.
Thanks Larry.
This from the Fox article: "Fox News has learned some of the words and names that were redacted in the string of Strzok-Page messages" prompts a (maybe dumb) question:
Do we know/can we infer how Fox managed to fill in just some of the redacted info? It seems odd to me that only a few of the blanks have been filled in, as if Fox had access to the original FBI phone records they'd have all of it. Also, the new handwritten parts seem to contain information which could not possibly have been gathered from any other source outside of this private 2 way conversation - e.g. "Just you two? Was DCM present for the interview?" and the reply "No, two of them, two of us".
Do Fox have it all and are they then just teasing us, or is perhaps one of the two star-crossed lovers singing?
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May 08, 2019 | fortune.com
Gina Haspel is facing a Congressional grilling as her confirmation hearings for the CIA director's position get underway.Should she overcome it, she'll be the first woman to hold the director's job. It's a high profile position, but Haspel has been a pretty low profile person up until this point. So who is Trump's nominee to run the government's spy agency?
Haspel, who would replace new secretary of state Mike Pompeo , has been with the agency since 1985, spending much of her career undercover. She has received several awards, including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism and the Presidential Rank Award, the highest award in the federal civil service. She also has overseen the torture of some terror suspects , which is what critics and former ambassadors are worried about.
A 2017 New York Times report says Haspel, in 2002, oversaw the torture of two suspects at a secret prison in Thailand and later was involved in the destruction of videotapes documenting that torture.
One of those prisoners was waterboarded 83 times in a single month, had his head repeatedly slammed into walls , and endured other harsh methods before interrogators decided he had no useful information to provide, says the Times .
As a result of such torture, she was shifted out of her role as head of the CIA's clandestine service.
Haspel was picked to run the CIA's clandestine operations unit in 2013, but Senator Dianne Feinstein , who was the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee at the time, blocked the promotion because of Haspel's history of torture.
Within the agency, though, Haspel is reportedly widely respected – and has support from members of both the Bush and Obama administrations. Where she stands personally on issues such as extreme interrogation techniques is an unknown, as she has not offered any public comments on policy, as you would expect for an undercover officer.
And that's what Senators are hoping to learn more about as their questioning gets underway.
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May 27, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2019 at 02:53 PM
Here's an interesting sidelight:
"Intelligence scholar sues Cambridge academic, U.S. news outlets over reports on Flynn links" , Politico , 201905-24
A Russian-born British scholar [Svetlana Lokhova] is suing an alleged FBI informant [Halper] and four news outlets for allegedly defaming her by linking her to Russian efforts to influence President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign .
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Lokhova alleges that Halper and the news outlets conspired to spread a false narrative that she approached then-Defense Intelligence Agency Director Michael Flynn on behalf of Russian intelligence at a seminar dinner in England in 2014 and that Flynn and Lokhova had an intimate relationship.Over time, as public attention focused on links between the Trump campaign and Russia -- and after Flynn was fired from his role as national security adviser by Trump in February 2017, individuals hostile to Trump and Flynn seized on the alleged connection to Lokhova as evidence that Flynn had been compromised by Russia, she alleges in the suit.
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"Stefan Halper is a rat ----- and a spy, who embroiled an innocent woman in a conspiracy to undo the 2016 Presidential election and topple the President of the United States of America," Lokhova alleges in the 66-page complaint .
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May 24, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Forget July 31, 2016 as the alleged start date for the full blown Trump counter intelligence investigation. That day is a sham. The actual campaign to paint Trump as a full fledged stooge of Russia started in early May 2016. We now know the start date thanks to the text messages between star-crossed lovers Strzok and Page and the timeline buried in the Mueller Report:
It is important to understand that the collection of intelligence on U.S. Presidential candidates was not limited to Donald Trump. The collection effort started in the summer of 2015 and included the main Republican candidates and, according to a knowledgeable source, also targeted Bernie Sanders.
Also remember that the Presidential campaign is a dynamic event that changes over time. In the summer of 2015, the conventional wisdom touted Jeb Bush as the likely nominee. But as the months passed the field narrowed. By March of 2016, Donald Trump was the leader and appeared likely to garner the nomination.
April was the turning point where the foundation for attacking Trump was being laid. The law firm, Perkins Coie, hired Fusion GPS on behalf of Hillary Clinton's campaign . Andy McMarthy reported on the details of this arrangement in October 2017:
The Clinton campaign and the DNC retained the law firm of Perkins Coie; in turn, one of its partners, Marc E. Elias, retained Fusion GPS. We don't know how much Fusion GPS was paid, but the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid $9.1 million to Perkins Coie during the 2016 campaign (i.e., between mid-2015 and late 2016).
Fusion GPS then "hired" FBI Informant Christopher Steele in May 2016. More about that later.
As Lisa Page and Peter Strzok noted in their text exchange, Ted Cruz dropping out of the race in early May was the catalyst for focusing all resources on Donald Trump. This effort, which I label, the Trump Russia covert action, involved the CIA, the NSA, the FBI and British Intelligence. How do we know? Just look at the Robert Mueller Report:
- May 4, 2016, George Papadopolous forwarded to Corey Lewandowski an email from Timofeev [who was introduced to Papadopolous by Joseph Mifsud] raising the possibility of a meeting in Moscow , asking Lewandowski whether that was " something we want to move forward with. " The next day, Papadopoulos forwarded the same Timofeev email to Sam Clovis, adding to the top of the email "Russia update." (From Mueller Report)
- May 4, 2016, FBI Informant Felix Sater followed up with Michael Cohen re Trump Tower Moscow Project: "I had a chat with Moscow. ASSUMING the trip does happen the question is before or after the convention. I said I believe, but don't know for sure, that 's it's probably after the convention. Obviously the pre-meeting trip (you only) can happen anytime you want but the 2 big guys where [sic] the question. I said I would confirm and revert. . . . Let me know about If I was right by saying I believe after Cleveland and also when you want to speak to them and possibly fly over." (From Mueller Report)
- May 5, 2016, FBI Informant Felix Sater wrote to Michael Cohen: "Peskov would like to invite you as his guest to the St. Petersburg Forum which is Russia's Davos it's June 16-19. He wants to meet there with you and possibly introduce you to either Putin or Medvedev , as they are not sure if 1 or both will be there. This is perfect. The entire business class of Russia wiU be there as well. He said anything you want to discuss including dates and subjects are on the table to discuss[. ]" (From Mueller Report)
- May 6, 2016, George Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government [i.e., Erika Thompson, senior aide to Alexander Downer] that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton. (p. 81 Mueller Report)
- May 6, 2016, two military attachés at the US embassy in London, Terrence Dudley and Gregory Baker, reach out to George Papadopolous to set up a meeting." [Both, per Papadopolous are with Defense Intelligence Agency, { https://books.apple.com/us/book/deep-state-target/id1446495998 ) (From Papadopolous Book)
- May 7, 2016 (12 days before becoming campaign chair for Trump's) Paul Manafort meets with Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who has lived in both Russia and Ukraine and was a longtime Manafort employee. (From Mueller Report) [NOTE -- Mueller's team identified this as "suspect" activity that needed to be investigated.]
- May 16, 2016, while that request was still under consideration, Carter Page emailed Clovis, J.D. Gordon, and Walid Phares and suggested that candidate Trump take his place speaking at the commencement ceremony in Moscow. (From Mueller Report)
- May 19, 2016, Paul Manafort was promoted to campaign chairman and chief strategist, and Gates, who had been assisting Manafort on the Campaign, was appointed deputy campaign chairman. (From Mueller Report) [NOTE -- the Mueller team believed that Manafort was acting on behalf of Russian interests but failed to find corroborating evidence.]
- May 2016, the IRA created the Twitter account @march_for_trump , which promoted IRA-organized rallies in support of the Trump Campaign (From Mueller Report
- May 2016-- FBI Informant Henry Oknyansky (who also went by the name Henry Greenberg), claimed to have information pertaining to Hillary Clinton. Michael Caputo notified Roger Stone and brokered communication between Stone and Oknyansky. Oknyansky and Stone set up a May 2016 in-person meeting. (From Mueller Report)
Then we have this little tidbit courtesy of the Washington Post that the CIA acted, perhaps as early as June 2016 :
John Brennan convened a secret task force at CIA headquarters composed of several dozen analysts and officers from the CIA, the NSA and the FBI.
The unit functioned as a sealed compartment, its work hidden from the rest of the intelligence community. Those brought in signed new non-disclosure agreements to be granted access to intelligence from all three participating agencies.
They worked exclusively for two groups of "customers," officials said. The first was Obama and fewer than 14 senior officials in government. The second was a team of operations specialists at the CIA, NSA and FBI who took direction from the task force on where to aim their subsequent efforts to collect more intelligence on Russia.
Investigators must get the date that this CIA task force was established. They also need to identify and interview the people who participated and were cleared to work on this task force. President Trump must understand that this was not a legitimate intelligence operation. It was weaponizing the intel community to act against a Presidential candidate. It was manufactured as part of a broader plan to paint Trump as a tool of Putin and a servant of Russia.
We must take a new look at the story told about the so-called Russian hack of the DNC. I believe that Crowd Strike is lying about its role and the timeline. Here is the "official" story
May 6, 2016, Dmitri Alperovitch woke up in a Los Angeles hotel to an alarming email. Alperovitch is the thirty-six-year-old cofounder of the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, and late the previous night, his company had been asked by the Democratic National Committee to investigate a possible breach of its network. A CrowdStrike security expert had sent the DNC a proprietary software package, called Falcon, that monitors the networks of its clients in real time. Falcon "lit up," the email said, within ten seconds of being installed at the DNC: Russia was in the network. (From Esquire-- Esquire Magazine offers a different timeline)
We are asked to believe that the Russians were in the DNC network on the 6 th of May and that Crowd Strike knew it. But what steps did Crowd Strike take to shut down the "Russians." Short answer -- nothing until June 10 th .
The DNC emails were taken on the 25 th of May 2016. That is the last date for the DNC emails posted on Wikileaks.
Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima and Esquire magazine each reported that that the CrowdStrike effort did not shut down the DNC network until 10 June. If you know on May 6 th that the "Russians" are in the network, why does any credible, competent cyber security company wait until the 10 th of June to shut the system down?
I believe this is a cover story. Here is what I think really happened.
Seth Rich, a DNC employee and Bernie Sanders supporter, downloaded the emails and then gave them to Wikileaks. Rich was in contact with Wikileaks. That is not my opinion. We know that courtesy of a FOIA request by lawyer Ty Clevenger to the NSA filed in November 2017, who requested any information regarding Seth Rich and Julian Assange. The NSA informed Clevenger in a letter dated 4 October 2018 that:
Your request has been processed under the provisions of the FOIA. Fifteen documents (32 pages) responsive to your request have been reviewed by this Agency as required by the FOIA and have found to be currently and properly classified in accordance with Executive Order 13526. These documents meet the criteria for classification as set forth in Subparagraph © of Section 1.4 and remains classified TOP SECRET and SECRET."
Former NSA Technical Director, William Binney commented on this revelation:
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.
We already know, as noted above, that the CIA had a task force set up. I believe this intelligence was communicated to the Clinton campaign and that a bogus story, with Crowd Strike in a starring role, was cooked up. Implausible? Not as implausible as a supposed cracker jack cyber security company waiting almost six weeks before taking common sense steps to shut down and clean the DNC servers.
It was Crowd Strike with the help of the Washington Post that went public and pinned the blame on the Russians.
But that was not the only active measure in place. Christopher Steele, a fully signed up FBI informant, was hired by Fusion GPS and produced his first block buster report on June 20 th claiming Trump was under the thumb of Vladimir Putin.
This is not a complete timeline. More remains to be discovered. But there are key facts that most of the media and punditry have ignored. Donald Trump's announcement tonight (Thursday, 23 May 2019) to start declassifying documents on the Trump counter intelligence investigation and directing the intelligence agencies to cooperate may be the final straw that ends the conspiracy of ignorance.
Posted at 07:53 AM in Larry Johnson , Russiagate | Permalink
Eric Newhill , 24 May 2019 at 10:42 AM
O'Shawnessey , 24 May 2019 at 11:22 AMLarry,
Once again, thank you for the good work on this important topic. Looking forward to your future installments.
Things should get very interesting with the declassification in force. Can you see the NSA/Seth Rich/Wikileaks material being made declassified as well (albeit redacted for methods, etc of course)?
The Twisted Genius -> O'Shawnessey... , 24 May 2019 at 09:49 PMCan Barr declassify the Rich/Assange material? Also, was Skripal one of Steele's "sources"?
Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 12:14 PMO'Shawnessey, if the Rich/Assange material establishes communication between the two, I would expect it to be declassified to bolster the "Russia didn't do it" narrative. Even if that communication was't specifically about transferring DNC files or the actual transference of DNC files, it would be useful to Russia and/or Trump supporters.
If, OTOH, the file NSA files consist of Assange discussing the use of Rich as a useful scapegoat, the files will never see the light of day. According to what Larry has written, Clevenger asked for files with information involving Rich and Assange and did not specify communications between Assange and Rich.
Clevenger should have at least specified a cut off date. If the NSA files were produced before Rich's death, it would be a gold mine for Barr and Trump. If the documents covered the time after Rich's death, not so much.
My theory is that the Rich as leaker story is similar to the whole G2 story. They muddy the water and create chaos. Classic maskirovka.
Larry Johnson -> Factotum... , 24 May 2019 at 12:47 PMJoseph Mifsud is missing in this time line. He always appeared to be the most curious player. Any reason he is left out?
Doggrotter , 24 May 2019 at 12:44 PMIf you re-read closely I reference Timofeev who was introduced to Papadopolous by MIFSUD. He's there.
Thanks for askingbegob -> Doggrotter... , 25 May 2019 at 02:03 AMSiht, I hadn't even thought about classified info on SR. I had thought about how it would be interesting if it turned out Sanders had been spied on. Seriously explosive stuff. Something about Robert Duvall using the other N word, quote from Apocalypse Now.
jjc , 24 May 2019 at 02:41 PMThis is the second time in the past few weeks I've read about surveillance on Sanders. Is there a link to a reliable source?
I believe it's established that a guy from the UK worked in his campaign, and is now on the Integrity Initiative payroll. And the investigation into his wife's role in the financial affairs of the college she works for seems mysteriously to have run into the sands.
Tidewater -> Keith Harbaugh... , 24 May 2019 at 04:32 PMBefore joining Manafort in Kiev, Kliminik worked for almost a decade in Moscow for the International Republican Institute, effectively running that office for some of those years. The IRI is part of the NED/USAID network. There is no way an identified "GRU agent" would be permitted as a long time employee of such an organization.
The Mueller team deliberately seeded the suspicion, and credulous journalists speculated on polling data without pause. Kliminik was, in effect, Manafort's deputy in Kiev, working very closely with him - so again for the Mueller team to suggest there was anything at all sinister in the two men holding meetings, whether tied to campaign events or not, is unfounded speculation, which should have been obvious to all.
begob -> Keith Harbaugh... , 25 May 2019 at 02:05 AMI've been waiting for that one. Next comes Papadopoulos. I think the British Fraud Act of 2006 is quite relevant to what Halper was doing. Cambridge University, Magdalene College, even Pembroke College would seem to me to be at risk for lawsuits. Fraud Act 2006 Wikipedia explains why litigation is now appropriate.
Please see: Fraud Act 2006 Wikipedia
Keith Harbaugh , 24 May 2019 at 03:14 PMI believe Glenn Greenwald has weighed in on this one. You should be able to find his views in an online search.
akaPatience , 24 May 2019 at 06:41 PMSundance provides quite a bit of information regarding Trump's declassification memorandum:
"President Trump's Declassification Directive Outlines Specific Process and Direction ." , by sundance, 2019-05-24
To avoid the conflict [of interest] President Trump designates the U.S. Attorney General as arbiter and decision-maker for the purposes of declassifying evidence within the investigation
...
[etc.]joanna -> akaPatience ... , 25 May 2019 at 12:43 PMI realize Larry Johnson's already alluded to the existence of NSA files about communications between Seth Rich and Julian Assange, but the implications are finally sinking in as to how evil this whole mess is.
I've always been dismissive of those who've made comments about "Arkancide" in connection with the Clintons, but I may have to revise my POV. I wonder who was involved in the process of getting rid of Mr. Rich?
It's horrible to even ponder...
ex-PFC Chuck , 24 May 2019 at 09:41 PMWasn't there a "murder case" in DC itself? In other words do you really need to lead us down to Arkansas, murky real estate deals, drugs, extramarital relationships bordering on rapes and other shady associate networks? But I agree, suicided may not fit all too well.
Ghost Ship -> ex-PFC Chuck... , 26 May 2019 at 05:56 AMI am struck by the irony of the Trump administration is prosecuting Julian Assange under the Espionage Act for actions that are common journalistic practices, while simultaneously conducting an investigation that is closing in on malefactors of high position for probable actions that threaten the very core of our democracy and which in all likelihood would still be unknown to the public were it not for the work of that same heterodox journalist.
Factotum , 24 May 2019 at 10:53 PMI suspect that the Trump government really doesn't want Assange extradited but feels it has to be seen to have gone through the motions. 17+ indictments might be effective in the American judicial system but here in good old Blighty it's way too many and they might all be thrown out as being oppressive.
But then again the Conservative government after Brexit will be a bunch of craven shits desperate for a trade deal from Trump and will reply "how high" when he says jump.walrus , 25 May 2019 at 07:53 PMDeclassify the list of persons "Samantha Powers" asked FISA courts to unmask during the 11th hours of the Obama administration. Or learn who signed her name to these requests, if in fact she did not as she claimed.
Factotum , 25 May 2019 at 11:56 PMI'm concerned that Assange may not live long enough to stand trial because he is capable of closing too many open investigations.
Redstate reports the 260 FISA unmasking requests in 2016 in Samantha Power name were perhaps for an Israel Settlesment-gate; not Russiagate? https://www.redstate.com/elizabeth-vaughn/2019/05/25/samantha-powers-unmasked-260-americans-2016-soon-well-learn/
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May 12, 2019 | caucus99percent.com
Speaking of getting led around by the nose, we come to one Gina Haspel's great deceptions. This deception plays directly into the hands of Russiagaters. This woman, supposedly brought into CIA leadership in order to demolish the agency, is proving quite adept in perpetuating its reign of terror. Again, we have a neocon undermining Trump's prestige and authority.
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Apr 17, 2019 | larouchepub.com
(EIRNS) -- The New York Times ran a story yesterday titled, "Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills To Connect with Trump. He Doesn't Always Listen." Based on interviews with former and current CIA agents who worked with CIA Director Haspel (but not interviewing her), the Times praises her skills and attempts to denigrate Trump, but they also retail a story about her and Trump which could cost Haspel deeply.
Following the March 2018 breaking of the Skripal poisoning story in England, the Times writes, Trump had initially "written off the poisoning as part of legitimate spy games, distasteful but within the bounds of espionage." Haspel, on the other hand, was backing London's demand for Trump to blame Russia immediately and expel dozens of Russian diplomats.
Writes the Times:
"During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy CIA director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the President that the 'strong option' was to expel 60 diplomats.
"To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia's attack.
"Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives."
This appeal reportedly swayed Trump to go along with Haspel's advice.
If it sounds like the British "White Helmet" terrorists in Syria faking pictures of children being hit with chemical weapons to convince Trump to bomb Syrian targets, it is indeed precisely the same.
Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, an outspoken critic of these British imperial lies and atrocities, posted a response today to the Times garbage on his blog. He states first that yet another truth behind the Skripal lies was revealed recently by police, acknowledging that "the perfume bottle Charlie Rowley found was sealed and could not have been the container used on the Skripals." He goes on: "It took nine months for us to learn that, by a truly wonderful coincidence, the first person to find the Skripals ill on the bench was the Chief Nurse of the British Army."
But on the Haspel story in the Times, Murray is furious. "The problem is," he writes,
"there were no hospitalized children. No children have been reported as becoming ill following their duck feeding with the Skripals. We have heard from one of the parents that they were shown by the police extremely clear [closed-circuit surveillance] CCTV footage of the duck feeding, which has never been made public. Surely if the child had been hospitalized, the parent would have mentioned it?"
He quotes Dr. Stephen Davies of Salisbury Hospital, who wrote to the New York Times on March 14 stating clearly that no children had been hospitalized, and that every person who came to the hospital fearing they had been contaminated had no symptoms and tests turned out negative. Murray states:
"We also know that the duck feeding was the time that Boshirov and Petrov [the alleged Russian culprits] were physically closest to the Skripals. But this is the first time there has ever been any mention of any harm to the ducks. Dead ducks would have been noticed by the public."
It appears that the British Empire is the dead duck in this myth.
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Aug 08, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
The revelations from US Government records about the FBI/Intel Community plot to take out Donald Trump continue to flow thanks to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch. The latest nugget came last Friday with the release of FBI records detailing their recruitment and management of Britain's ostensibly retired Intelligence Officer, Christopher Steele. He was an officially recruited FBI source and received at least 11 payments during the 9 month period that he was signed up as a Confidential Human Source.
You may find it strange that we can glean so much information from a document dump that is almost entirely redacted . The key is to look at the report forms; there are three types--FD-1023 (Source Reports), FD-209a (Contact Reports) and FD-794b (Payment Requests). There are 15 different 1023s, 13 209a reports and 11 794b payment requests covering the period from 2 February 2016 thru 1 November 2016. That is a total of nine months.
These reports totally destroy the existing meme that Steele only came into contact with the FBI sometime in July 2016. It is important for you to understand that a 1023 Source Report is filled out each time that the FBI source handler has contact with the source. This can be an in person meeting or a phone call. Each report lists the name of the Case Agent; the date, time and location of the meeting; any other people attending the meeting; and a summary of what was discussed.
What is clear from the new records is that Christopher Steele, a foreign intelligence officer, had frequent and extensive contacts with the FBI. Who was his FBI Case Agent?
Indeed we do need more information.chris chuba , 5 hours agoThe main thing I want to know is WHEN was the decision made to tar Trump with Russia - both at the FBI (and likely CIA) and at the DNC (over the leak) - and WHO was the deciding entity - Comey, Brennan, Clinton, Obama or someone else? And perhaps who came up with the idea in the first place (at the DNC, it was very likely Alexandra Chalupa, the Ukrainian-American DNC "consultant").
We can be pretty sure this predates any alleged Russian "hacking" (unless it occurred as a result of alleged Russian hacking of the DNC in 2015).
This needs to be pinned down if anyone is to be successfully prosecuted for creating this treasonous hoax.
A very closely related topic, Victor Davis Hanson is onto something but it is darker than he suggests, https://www.nationalreview.... Paraphrasing, he gives the typical, rally around the flag we must stop the Russians intro but then documents how govt flaks abused their power to influence our elections and then makes the point, 'this is why the public is skeptical of their claims'.Leonardo Facchin , 20 hours agoThe bad thing is that our MSM is so reverent of our Intel agencies that I see them encouraged to increasingly put their hand on the scale.
Recently, I saw arm flailing by a Congressman, Dan Coats, and Mueller about how the Russians are still at it. They are trying to disrupt or influence the 2018. Really, then I demand to get a list of the pro-Kremlin candidates. How long before the mere threat of being outed as a Kremlin agent is used to punish elected officials if they are not sufficiently hawkish or don't support certain programs. Unchallenged claims by Intel agencies gives them a lot of political power.
I am skeptical. Russia has a lot of fish to fry, why would they expend resources on midterm elections. Now everyone in the U.S. hates them, both traditional hawk Republicans and born again uber-hawk Democrats. There is a tiger behind both doors.
Thanks for the explanation.Publius Tacitus -> Leonardo Facchin , 17 hours agoWhat I can't figure out is: if Steele had been a CHS since at least February of 2016, what was the purpose of passing the Dossier to the FBI through Fusion GPS? Why not just going to his FBI handler? Was Steele collaboration with Fusion even in compliance with FBI regulations? Did the FBI know?
Because part of the plan was to leak the information in order to damage Trump. FBI could not do that. Would have exposed them to some real legal jeopardy. This was a dual track strategy. Diabolical almost.blue peacock -> Leonardo Facchin , 13 hours agoDon't forget the Nellie Ohr (Fusion GPS) -> Bruce Ohr (DOJ) back channel. The husband & wife tag team. Yes, the same Nellie that was investigating using ham radio to communicate to avoid NSA mass surveillance.Paul M -> Leonardo Facchin , 16 hours agoFrom the very beginning that information about all this was slowly leaking from the Congressional investigation, this whole thing smelled very fishy. Then add intense effort at DOJ & FBI to obstruct and obfuscate. And the unhinged tweets and interviews by Brennan, Clapper & Comey. And of course the media narrative that Rep. Nunes, Goodlatte and others were endangering "national security" by casting aspersions on the "patriotic" law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
He was working with FBI and GPS at the same time. GPS was in the dark supposedly about his work with the FBI and Steele got their approval to hand over what he had delivered to GPS to the FBI as a cover for his work with the FBI.David Habakkuk , 4 hours agoOf course, he had most likely already done so and its also likely FBI had some input into the content of what was delivered to GPS, and more importantly what was not delivered.
PT,Jack -> David Habakkuk , 2 hours agoFascinating.
Re the 'standing agreement to not recruit each other's intelligence personnel for clandestine activities.' As Steele was not by this time a current employee of MI6, was the FBI in technical violation of this?
The point is not merely a quibble. A central question in regard to Steele, as with quite a number of former intelligence/law enforcement/military people who have started at least ostensibly private sector operations, is how far these are being used as 'cover' for activities conducted on behalf of either the state agencies for which they used to work, or other state agencies.
It is at least possible that one advantage of such arrangements may be that they make it possible to evade the letter of agreements between intelligence agencies in different countries.
Another related matter has to do with the termination of Steele as a 'Confidential Human Source.'
It has long seemed to me that it was more than possible that this was not to be taken at face value. If, as seems likely, both current and former top FBI and DOJ people – very likely Mueller as well as Comey, Strzok and many others – were intimately involved in the conspiracy to subvert the constitution, then a means of making it possible for Steele to combine feeding information to the FBI while also engaging in 'StratCom' via the MSM could have been necessary.
An obvious means of 'squaring the circle' would have been to issue a formal 'termination' to Steele, while creating 'back channels' to those who were officially supposed not to be talking to him.
A report yesterday by John Solomon in 'The Hill' quotes from messages exchanged between Steele and Bruce Ohr after the supposed termination.
(See http://thehill.com/person/d... .)
When on 31 January 2017 – well after the publication of the dossier by BuzzFeed – Ohr provided reassurance that he could continue to help feed information to the FBI, Steele texted back:
"If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can't allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous."
At that point, Solomon tells us that 'Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to.' This seems to me a rather important question. It would seem likely, although not certain, that he is talking about another Brit. If he is, would it have been someone else employed by Orbis? Or someone currently working for British intelligence? What is the precise significance of 'forced to go back home', and why would this have been 'disastrous'?
Another crucial paragraph:
'In all, Ohr's notes, emails and texts identify more than 60 contacts with Steele and/or Simpson, some dating to 2002 in London. But the vast majority occurred during the 2016-2017 timeframe that gave birth to one of the most controversial counterintelligence probes in American history.'
The earlier contacts may be of little interest, but there again they may not be.
As it happens, it was following Berezovsky's arrival in London in October 2001 that the 'information operations' network he created began to move into high gear. It is moreover clear that this was always a transatlantic operation, and also fragments of evidence suggest that the FBI may have had some involvement from early on.
I have just finished taking a fresh look at Sir Robert Owen's travesty of a report into the death of Litvinenko. In large measure, this develops claims originally made in Christopher Steele's first attempt to provide a convincing account of why figures close to Putin might have thought it made sense to assassinate that figure, and to do so with polonium. The sheer volume of fabrication which has been deployed in an attempt to defend the patently indefensible almost beggars belief.
The original attempt came in a radio programme broadcast by the BBC – which was to become known to some of us as the 'Berezovsky Broadcasting Corporation' – on 16 December 2006, presented by Tom Mangold, a familiar 'trusty' for the intelligence services.
(A transcript sent out from the Cabinet Office at the time is available on the archived 'Evidence' page for the Inquiry, at http://webarchive.nationala... , as HMG000513. There is an interesting and rather important question as to whether those who sent it out, and those who received it, knew that it was more or less BS from start to finish.)
The programme was wholly devoted to claims made by the former KGB operative Yuri Shvets, who was presented as an independent 'due diligence' expert, without any mention of the rather major role he had played in the original 'Orange Revolution.'
Back-up was provided by his supposed collaborator in 'due diligence', the former FBI operative Robert 'Bobby' Levinson. No mention was made of the fact that he had been, in the 'Nineties, a, if not the lead FBI investigator into the notorious Ukrainian Jewish mobster Semyon Mogilevich.
The following March Levinson would disappear on the Iranian island of Kish, on what we now know was a covert mission on behalf of elements in the CIA.
Just as a question arises as to whether Steele is essentially acting on behalf of MI6, a question also arises as to whether the FBI leadership were knowledgeable about, and possibly involved with, the various shenanigans in which Shvets and Levinson were involved. Given that claims about Mogilevich have turned out to be central to 'Russiagate', that seems a rather important issue, and I am curious as to whether Ohr's communications with Steele may cast any light on it.
DavidKeith Harbaugh , 19 hours agoApparently the FBI got Deripaksa to fund the rescue of Levinson from Iran. Furthermore apparently FBI personnel maybe including McCabe visited with Deripaksa and showed him the Steele dossier. He supposedly had a nice guffaw and dismissed it as nonsense. So on the one hand while they make Russia out to be the most evil they play footsie with Russian oligarchs.
Thanks for this informative article.TTG , an hour agoThinking about "Christopher Steele was terminated as a Confidential Human Source for cause.", something that doesn't seem to have gotten as much attention is that Peter Strzok failed his poly:
- "Yes, It's True: Peter Strzok Failed His Polygraph Yet Retained Security Clearance and Position on Two Investigations " per sundance, 2018-07-06
- "Peter Strzok's Out of Scope Polygraph" per Marcy Wheeler, 2018-06-29
Seems rather surprising to me. Anyone have any comment on this?
Steele's relationship with the FBI extends far further back than February 2016. Shortly after he left MI6, he contracted with the Football Association to investigate possible FIFA corruption. Once he realized the massiveness of this corruption he contacted his old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crimes Task Force in 2011. Thus began his association with the FBI as a CHS. That investigation culminated in the 2015 FIFA corruption indictments and convictions. His initial contact with old friends at the FBI Eurasian Crime Task Force is awfully similar to his contacting these same friends in 2016 after deciding his initial Trump research was potentially bigger than mere opposition research.FB , 3 hours agoOne thing I don't understand...we have the anti-Trumpers saying that Donald Junior meeting with a Russian national to get 'dirt' on Hillary is illegal...due to some law about candidates collaborating with foreigners or something like that...[obviously I'm foggy on the technical details]... Yet we know that the Hillary campaign worked with a foreign national, Steele, to get dirt on Trump...how is this not the same...?Wally Courie , 4 hours agoEven worse is that the FBI was using this same foreign agent that a presidential candidate had hired to get dirt on an opponent... Even knowing nothing about legalities this just doesn't look very good...
Stupid question? As the Col. has explained, the President can declassify any document he pleases. So, why doesn't Donaldo unredact the redacted portions of these bullcrap docs? What is he afraid of? That the Intel community will get mad and be out to get him? Isn't time for him to show some cojones?blue peacock , 16 hours agoWhat role did Stefan Halper and Mifsud play as Confidential Human Sources in all this?akaPatience , 19 hours agoWhy was British Intelligence allegedly collecting and passing along info about Donald Trump in the first place? Or could this have been a pretext created to give cover and/or support to the agenda here in the US to insure his defeat? Could a foreign intelligence source such as this trigger/facilitate/justify the US counterintelligence investigation of Trump, or give cover to a covert investigation that may have already begun?Navstéva يزور 🐐 -> akaPatience , 17 hours agoBritish intelligence was collecting / passing on info about Trump because of his campaign stance on NATO (he said it was obsolete), his desire to end regime change wars (he castigated the fiasco in Iraq, took Bush to task over it etc.), and his often stated desire to get along with Russia (and China). Trump also talked of ending certain economic policies (NAFTA, TPP, etc.) and reenacting others (Glass-Steagall, the American System of Economics i.e. Hamilton, Carey, Clay), If Trump had acted on those, which he has not so far, he would changed the entire world system, a system in place since the end of WW II, or earlier. That was a risk too big to take without some kind of insurance policy - I believe Christopher Steele was that insurance policy.unmitigatedaudacity -> Navstéva يزور 🐐 , 16 hours agoBritish Intelligence is verifiably the foreign source with the most extensive and effective meddling in the 2016 election. Perfidious Albion.Bryn Nykrson -> Navstéva يزور 🐐 , 14 hours agoOr, GSHQ was hovering up signint on Trump campaign early-on (using domestics US resources and databases via their 5-Eyes "sharing agreement" with NSA) cuz Brennan asked them to do it? And therefore without having to mess about with any formal FISA warrant thingy's ... But, then use what might be found (or plausibly alleged) to try to get a proper FISA warrant later on (July 2016)? 'Parallel Discovery' of sorts; with Fusion GPS also a leaky cut-out: channelling media reports to be used as confirmation of Steele's "raw intelligence" in the formal FISA application(s)?Biggee Mikeee -> akaPatience , 17 hours agoTrump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates,richardstevenhack -> Biggee Mikeee , 13 hours ago" Trump announced his run for President in 2015. I'm pretty sure that every intel service on the planet was watching him, they would be derelict not to. GCHQ may have been collecting intel on all the candidates, "
That's a good question, could it legally enable an end run around the FISC until enough evidence was gathered for a FISC surveillance authorization?.
I've heard that the Echelon system is used by the Five Eyes IC to do something similar. The Brits spy on US, and give the NSA the data so the NSA can evade US laws prohibiting spying on us, and we return the favor to help them evade what (few) laws they have that prohibits spying on their people.akaPatience -> Biggee Mikeee , 15 hours agoOnly a matter of time until someone figured out the same method could be used to "meddle" in national affairs.
I understand, but still wonder why the US would need to rely so much on British intelligence sources such as Steele about a very high profile American citizen and businessman -- aren't our intelligence services competent enough to have known and discovered as much if not more about Trump than other countries' intelligence services? I've read that Steele's cover was blown 20 years ago and he hasn't even been to Russia since, so I wonder why he was considered such a reliable source by both the US and UK? In my opinion as an absolute naif about such things, Steele seems like he may be a has-been when it comes to Russia.DianaLC -> akaPatience , 4 hours agoHere is a simple explanation from someone who knows almost nothing about how any of the people in power work: Most of them are not as clever and smart as they think they are. And most of the regular people who are just citizens are smarter than these people think they are.It's simply that their arrogant assessment of their own superiority caused them to do really stupid things.
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May 03, 2019 | www.theepochtimes.com
Originally from: Spygate The True Story of Collusion [Infographic] by Jeff Carlson ( October 12, 2018 Updated: May 3, 2019 )
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.
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.
Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.
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May 03, 2019 | www.youtube.com
The New York Times reports that two months before the 2016 presidential election Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos sat down with an undercover investigator for the FBI who was trying to probe whether the Trump campaign was working with Russia. The FBI declined comment, according to the paper.
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www.youtube.com
Apr 02, 2019 | rawconservativeopinions.com
Authored by Roger Simon via PJMedia.com,
It's bad enough, as has been evident for some time, that Donald Trump and his campaign were being spied upon by our own government, but it's highly likely they were also subject to literal entrapment–at least a serious attempt was made.
I don't mean the entrapment of promulgating the salacious Steele dossier both to the public and the FISA court as if it were the truth. That was more of a smear to justify a phony investigation. I mean something more subtle and LeCarré-like coming from the depths of our intelligence communities. It raises once more the question of the power of such agencies in a free society, a conundrum with no easy answers but of great significance to our lives.
For all his New York rough-and-tumble, Trump was an innocent abroad when he arrived in Washington. Way back in January 2017, he was warned by old-timer Chuck Schumer that "intel officials have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you."
The Senate minority leader–Deep Stater par excellence –knew whereof he spoke. But Trump somehow survived the storm, although sometimes it seemed as if he wouldn't. Now, some of the obvious parties –John K. Brennan and James Clapper with their apparatchik miens -- have suddenly found themselves in the crosshairs, as the Washington Times notes:
Special counsel Robert Mueller's finding that there was no Trump campaign conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election has unleashed a tsunami of outrage toward Obama-era intelligence chiefs, particularly former CIA Director John O. Brennan and former FBI Director James B. Comey, who are accused of pushing the allegation during congressional hearings, in social media posts and in highly charged interviews on television over the past two years.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper also leveled up highly publicized comments that President Trump could even be an "asset" of Russian President Vladimir Putin , part of a slew of remarks that critics say went far beyond the usual partisan sniping that can accompany a change of administrations.
More's afoot here, however, considerably more because the entire American intelligence system and the unique power referred to by Schumer are also now in those same crosshairs, as they should be. But many of the men and women involved are less overtly Stalinist in their style than Mssrs. Brennan and Clapper and slip more easily under the radar.
Notable among these, and perhaps able to reveal much of the McGuffin to the mystery of where this all started and how, is Stefan Halper. Mr. Halper is "an American foreign policy scholar and Senior Fellow at the University of Cambridge where he is a Life Fellow at Magdalene College and directs the Department of Politics and International Studies ." He is also a spook who worked for Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, no less, and was a principle American connection to the UK's MI-6.
Mr. Halper has (ahem) other connections :
A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper – a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.
Hmm . The perspicacious Margot Cleveland had more to say the other day at The Federalist in " Who Launched An Investigation Into Trump's Campaign Before Crossfire Hurricane. "
"Crossfire Hurricane," as most know, is the codename the wannabe hipsters at the FBI gave the Trump-Russia investigation. But more important is the word "before" in Ms. Cleveland's title.
The Post further noted that the academic, since identified as Stefan Halper, first met with Trump campaign advisor Carter Page "a few weeks before the opening of the investigation," and then after Crossfire Hurricane's July 31, 2016, start, he met again with Carter Page and "with Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis," offering the latter his "foreign-policy expertise" for the Trump team. Then in September, Halper "reached out to George Papadopoulos, an unpaid foreign-policy adviser for the campaign, inviting him to London to work on a research paper."
Papadopoulos and Page are the two naifs of the most obvious sort (sorry, guys) we have all seen on television who spent the last couple of years having to defend themselves against absurd charges. Considering the timing, it's pretty obvious they were being set up (i. e. entrapped) on some level well back during the Obama administration.
Who ordered it is the obvious question, but I'm not going to leave it there.
I suggest that an attempt was being made to implant Halper in the Trump campaign, one way or another, not just for spying purposes but actually to help create this collusion of the campaign with Russia–that is, to help manufacture it.
Putting it another way, someone or some group wanted to create -- or, more subtly, to encourage the creation -- of Trump-Russia collusion from the inside in order to destroy Trump before, or failing that, after he was elected.
How's that for a nefarious plot? Worthy of LeCarré or maybe even Graham Greene. But is it true? I wouldn't bet against it. Something close anyway.
By the way, if I am right, this won't be the first time for Halper. And unfortunately for Republicans, the shoe was then on the proverbial other foot. As Glenn Greenwald wrote last year:
Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election , in which the Reagan campaign – using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush – got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.
Republicans can console themselves that their malfeasance was more benign, relatively. This new one was outright sedition involving a foreign power. It is a blow to the heart of our democratic republic. We need Halper, under oath and unredacted. Whether that's possible is another question.
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May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Both the Washington Post and CNN - which breathlessly reported on their peers' anonymously-sourced anti-Trump propaganda for two years - have somehow failed to write a single article mentioning Azra Turk . As the Times revealed on Thursday, the FBI operative who went by the name Azra Turk repeatedly flirted with Trump aide George Papadopoulos during their encounters as well as in email exchanges according to an October, 2018 Daily Caller report, confirmed by the Times.
While in London in 2016, Ms. Turk exchanged emails with Mr. Papadopoulos, saying meeting him had been the " highlight of my trip ," according to messages provided by Mr. Papadopoulos.
" I am excited about what the future holds for us :), " she wrote. - New York Times
And as the Times makes clear, "the FBI sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer" to investigate the Trump campaign. Verified account @ ByronYork May 2 Follow Follow @ ByronYork Following Following @ ByronYork Unfollow Unfollow @ ByronYork Blocked Blocked @ ByronYork Unblock Unblock @ ByronYork Pending Pending follow request from @ ByronYork Cancel Cancel your follow request to @ ByronYork More
In his House testimony, George Papadopoulos described undercover FBI informant Stefan Halper introducing him to undercover FBI informant 'Azra Turk.' pic.twitter.com/8jO4lK6Ldt
So I get there. I get to London. And he introduces -- or he does not introduce me to, but I can't remember exactly how I came into contact with his assistant, this young lady named Azra Turk, which I think is a fake name, by the way. My --
Mr. Meadows. Why do you believe it's a fake name?
Mr. Papadopoulos. Reading -- reading Twitter and people saying that Azra in Turkish means pure and then Turk. So unless she has the name of pure Turk. I don't know. Maybe that's -- those are common names in Turkey. I don't know. But it just seems that it was probably a fake alias.
Another beautiful young lady -- you know, I had many young beautiful ladies coming into my life with Joseph Mifsud and now another professor. The professors liked to introduce me to young beautiful women.
And we're sitting there, and she didn't strike me as a Cambridge associate at all. So right away, I was suspicious that there was something not right here. She -- her English was very bad. She spoke with -- I think she was a Turkish national, but she also might have been a dual American citizen. I'm not sure. And she took me to -- out for drinks in London and was probing me a lot.
Meanwhile, a Russian-born academic falsely accused of being a Kremlin 'honeypot' operative against Mike Flynn, Svetlana Lokhova, has an interesting theory as to why the Times published the '2nd spy' revelation in the first place.
Svetlana Lokhova @ RealSLokhova 8h 8 hours ago MoreI am a 'veteran' of reading Adam Goldman (NYT) articles about Halper's role with the FBI so here are pointers. You always have to ask: 1) Why did he write the article? 2) When did he write the article? 3) What is the narrative he is placing? 4) What has he left out? THREAD
Svetlana Lokhova @RealSLokhova
Follow ) v
2/ You might remember that McCabe picked Goldman of all people to interview him about the use of 'Confidential Human Sources' in
Operation Crossfire Hurricane - funny that!Andrew McCabe intervied by NYT's Adam Goldma...
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 Go...
4/ Goldman's (McCabe's) argument is that the President was a national security risk because he fired Comey. "Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president's own actions constituted a possible threat to national security."
3 years and at least 33 million have been wasted in attempt to link Trump campaign to Russian intelligence. As I stated 2 years ago, I am not A Russian honeytrap for Gen Flynn.
RG @ rgreader 15h 15 hours ago More
Replying to @ RealSLokhova
Brennan used any Russian talking to a U.S. person as a reason to surveillance the U.S. person. Red scare...the century old excuse used by the FBI to illegally spy on Americans. The history books won't describe his actions as honorable
Svetlana Lokhova @RealSLokhova • 7h v
7/ This is Goldman's implausible explanation for spying. The President is portrayed as nuts, nytimes.com/2018/05/18/us/...
President Trump accused the without evidence, of planting a mole inside his campaign to undermine his presidential run. But the F.B.I. in fact dispatched a confidential informant to meet with Trump campaign advisers as it began its investigation into possible links between his campaign and Russia.
8/ What was it that prompted Goldman (ie McCabe) to publish his latest article on the FBI Russia investigation? Answer: Barr's criticism's of the FBI.
Barr: One of the things I want to look -- there are people -- many people seem to assume that the only intelligence collection that occurred was a single confidential informant and a FISA warrant. I would like to find out whether that is, in fact, true. It strikes me as a fairly anemic effort if that was the counterintelligence effort designed to stop the threat as it's being represented.
9/ The message by NYT (McCabe) is that the FBI threw their best guys at this, hence sudden reference to Operation 'Ghost Stories'.
10/ The main message is that the Russia investigation was legally predicated,
CNN law enforcement analyst and retired FBI agent James A. Gagliano opined on Twitter that perhaps the Times was helping the intelligence community get out in front of the upcoming Inspector General report on the FBI's conduct during the 2016 election.
James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano
Must caveat with -- would have had to have been a "CERTIFIED" FBI Undercover Agent (UCA), who had passed the UCA course, been pre-screened (psychologicals) and been handpicked by FBI HQ for a high-profile overseas assignment. Also, Legat London would've assuredly coordinated w/MI5.
James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano
Unless it was foreign intelligence service supplying the "honey trap.'' Papadopoulos argued *Azra Turk* had thick accent -- which wouldn't preclude her from FBI service, if US citizen. Some argue Agency employee. Surmise, absent heavy redaction, pending IG report lays this bare.
James A. Gagliano @JamesAGagliano
MAYBE this is why @nytimes helped get out in front of the news cycle that will roil following IG report that may be released this month or next.
Yog Soggoth , 1 hour ago link
malek , 1 hour ago linkPapadapoulos was smart enough to get pictures of her with his phone ... Right?
RightLineBacker , 4 minutes ago linkWho is Azra Turk?
Thought Processor , 1 hour ago linkAn FBI spy.
11b40 , 2 hours ago linkCIA/FBI helping each other out. Informally of course. Standard off the books quid pro quo.
surf@jm , 2 hours ago linkAs I understand it, the CIA is not supposed to be involved with spying on American citizens, but the FBI has wide ranging latitude. This article says she was presumed to be FBI, but Papadoploulos says he thinks she was CIA. So, it would be a graver offense if she was CIA and busy performing illegal spying activities on an American citizen.
If I am fuzzy on this, maybe someone can clarify who knows the rules a little better.
my new username , 2 hours ago linkNew York Slimes in collusion with the CIA and FBI deepstate.......
No **** Sherlock...........
C.J. , 2 hours ago linkWill she disappear like Mifsud...
HideTheWeenie , 2 hours ago linkMSM burying the truth? Well imagine my shock. I'm surprised the likes of CNN and Facebook are still trying to hide their ban on truth and just openly claim truth is hate speech.
Northbridge , 4 hours ago linkIf you work at the CIA, do you get "honeypot" privileges ?
They must have a lot of downtime.
Wonder if "honeypot" is a line item in the CIA budget and how they forecast that. Do their rates decline over time, maybe with an associated depletion account set up like for petroleum reserves. Lots of questions here.
AntiLeMaire , 4 hours ago linkHere's a link to the actual article.
[quote]
"Mr. Barr reignited the controversy last month when he told Congress , "I think spying on a political campaign is a big deal." He backed off the charged declaration later in the same hearing, saying: "I think spying did occur. The question is whether it was adequately predicated. And I'm not suggesting that it wasn't adequately predicated. But I need to explore that." "
......
Mr. Barr again defended his use of the term "spying" at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday, saying he wanted to know more about the F.B.I.'s investigative efforts during 2016 and explained that the early inquiry most likely went beyond the use of an informant and a court-authorized wiretap of a former Trump campaign adviser, Carter Page, who had interacted with a Russian intelligence officer.
.....
Weeks before Mr. Papadopoulos met with Ms. Turk and Mr. Halper, the F.B.I. had opened its investigation into the Russia effort -- based largely on information that Mr. Papadopoulos had relayed to an Australian diplomat about a Russian offer to help the Trump campaign by releasing thousands of hacked Democratic emails.
The F.B.I. received the information from the Australian government on July 26, 2016, the special counsel's report said, and the bureau code-named its investigation Crossfire Hurricane .
Investigators scrambled to determine whether Mr. Papadopoulos had any Russian contacts while deciding to scrutinize three additional Trump campaign aides who had concerning ties to Russia: Paul Manafort, its chairman; Michael T. Flynn, who went on to be the president's first national security adviser; and Mr. Page.
[/quote]
His response: "I'm just going to leave it right now as a 'government investigator.' I use that wording for a reason, and I'm going to leave it at that."
Priceless!
Not FBI, just a 'government investigator.' and "I use that wording for a reason," and people on Twitter all trying to solve that complicated puzzle ! LOL.
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May 03, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
Cheap Chinese Crap , 16 minutes ago link
Real Estate Guru , 18 minutes ago linkThere's a very easy way to pin this down. Since Halper introduced her as his "assistant", he should have no problem telling everybody where she is now.
If he is unable to produce her or show any proof that she was his own assistant-- he's a spy. period.
Proud-Christian-White-American-Man , 1 minute ago linkUPDATE:
X-22 Report just out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKPXiUXzNDo
Rod Rosenstein is toast!! .....another one bites the dust!
Rosenstein resigns yesterday...
... ... ..
TRUMP confirms all of this on Hannity right here...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2-r0Y9bLwQ
Q said tonight that this is the order of the tsunami of documents/testimony coming out in the next few days/weeks:
- AG BARR testifies in front of Congress on MAY 1,2
- The Comey Investigation is coming out in less than 14 days...indictments are coming
- The FISA declass comes out after that in May. This will take down Obama and everyone else
- The Horrowitz IG Report comes out right after that....it will be devastating to all the players in this mess
... ... ...
Here is the lineup of what happened by the traitors in the coup
- - Obama led everything from the White House. He spied on everyone
- - Hillary Clinton was the financier through her fake foundation
- - Brennan was the instigator
- - Clapper and Comey were the leakers
- - Christopher Steele and Glen Simpson were facilitators who created it all and fabricated the document with the Russians
- - Comey and McCabe and Strozk and Page were driving the engine of this attempted coup on Trump
... ... ...
-The democrats were involved in all of this...from Schiff to the rest of them in Congress.
The FISA declass coming out Monday?...
Hannity, Tucker, and Laura Ingrahm were all out on Friday. Something BIG is up, folks!!!
Stay tuned...!!!
Obama, Biden, and Hillary are TOAST!! OBAMA RAN THE WHOLE SHOW FROM THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!
"IT'S HANGIN' TIME!!"
" New Spygate Revelation: The Corruption Is Leading Right Back To The 'Scandal-Free' Obama White House!!"
ObamaGate: No Misdemeanors, Only High Crimes
Sens. Charles Grassley & Ron Johnson Release Letter to Attorney General William Barr, Demand Details About Investigation Into Obama's Illegal Spying on Trump Campaign [FULL LETTER]
"Those that yell the loudest are the ones going down" -Q
: Schiff, Waters, BRENNAN , Comey, Hillery, etc!!
Here it is folks, for those who have not seen it...the full interview of Trump last night where Trump himself lays it all out. "When do birds sing? Springtime!" - Q
That means right now!!
These people are going to hang. The coup has been stopped. The deep state is surrounded. OUR BORDER IS BEING MANNED WITH OUR MILITARY EVEN AS YOU READ THIS! Trump is building the Wall! The entire thing is going to be seen on public TV this summer. Trump said you will see:
The FISA declass...which will take down the House! That means Obama, Hillary, Comey, Lynch, Rosenstein, Biden, all of the perps who you already know in the FBI, Brennan , Clapper, McCabe, Mueller, the democrats, Waters, Schiff, Nadler, Swalowswell, Nadler, Pelosi, the lousy lying MSM...all of them! And lots more!
Trump said he is going to declass everything! The FISA, AND A WHOLE LOT MORE!!!
Everything! Trump is going after them, and they are surrounded. No place to hide, Hillary! No place to hide, Obama and all of your creeps. You are going to jail, or the hanging tree. One way or another, you are done!
FISA declass.
OIG Report Horrowitz.
302's
*HUGE COMEY REPORT COMING OUT IN TWO WEEKS! INDICTMENTS COMING!!- Prosecutor Joe Digenova! Leaking classified information to the press, lying to the FISA COURT!!
Gang of 8 documents
Documents and testimony from 53 closed door investigations.
Senate Intel investigations
House Intel investigations
The AG Barr report
Huber's leaking report and the 90,000 sealed indictments
3 large prison barges are going back and forth from New York to Gitmo... WHY?
Barr's testimony on March 1, 2 that will be a bombshell
Q was right all along!
The FISA court Judges have just turned over the documents showing that they were lied to by Comey, Rosenstein, etc.
New Spygate Revelation: The Corruption Is Leading Right Back To The 'Scandal-Free' Obama White House
Trump is closing every avenue of escape, money laundering, pedo stuff, criminal CEO's, politicians, etc.
Trump has ALL of Hillary's emails, including those that Obama had
Trump will declass 911, JFK, aliens, who Obama really is, his citizenship status of the country he was born in, everything!
Trump has Wikileaks sources....; )) ...soon he will have Assange
Trump has all of their communications....; )) ALL OF THEM!
Obama had thousand of Hillary's emails (49,000) and ran the entire op from his office in the White House
Hillary-"if Trump gets in we will all hang!", as she screamed at everybody on election night!
Trump has the NSA and the other 17 intel orgs that nobody knows about that have everything.... ; )))
Trump has it all! Trump also has clawed back $Trillions of stolen funds they took
The dems will be retiring en masse soon...Trump will take back the House in 2020
Court TV is coming back this summer. Hillary wanted that. Now you will be watching HER being indicted!
The libtard morons are going to go berserk folks! The show is beginning officially as of last night. There is no place to hide for them. The MSM is in full meltdown and the perps are panicking all over the planet!
*Bill Maher just turned on Adam Schiff....says "he is stalking Trump!"...
*Washington Times reporter Bob Woodward says "the Steele Dossier is a bunch of garbage!"
... ... ...
LEEPERMAX , 21 minutes ago linkReal Estate Guru: Great compilation of really bad news for the globalist traitors who sold the US out to the Chicoms and really good news for the Patriots!
But beware cornered and desperate enemies
They are the most vicious and unpredictable
Great segment today on Infowars about being ready for war https://www.infowars.com/watch/?video=5ccb7b6ef9b2ae001264aedb
The war on Zero Hedge against the Chicom trolls will soon go to the next level On a gut level the Steverino999's , his other screen names and the reset of the trolls know that when Patriots fully regain control of the US government it won't be pretty for them
Yes, Real Estate Guru and other fellow Patriots it is wonderful to see the battle turning for liberty and against globalist chicom tyranny ( and their henchmen) but Please do not be complacent there is much yet to be done before these sewer rats are flushed away from body politic of the US
Stand up for liberty!
JOHN BRENNAN'S CIA WAS BEHIND EVERY MOVE IN THIS ATTEMPTED COUP
(and everyone will soon know it)
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Apr 30, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
shaw , Apr 29, 2019 2:43:54 PM | link
What's the Wonder my dear?
Duh!
He is in CIA safe house in Al-Anbar.ISI is looking for this CIA's "Patsy" hide out. Watch this space, he has blood of 14 Pakistani soldiers on his hands via Iran hit. We will end this MOSSAD Agent.
Sally Snyder , Apr 29, 2019 2:45:43 PM | link
As shown in this article, statistics show that the War on Terror has been a colossal failure:CD Waller , Apr 29, 2019 3:06:16 PM | linkhttps://viableopposition.blogspot.com/2019/03/global-terrorism-and-failure-of-war-on.html
The one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist activities would certainly agree that the trillions of dollars that have been spent on the War on Terror has done very little to remove the spectre of terrorist activities from their homes, cities and nations.
Are we sure the man in the film is Bahgdadi?Fantome , Apr 29, 2019 3:09:31 PM | linkSally Snyder: The war on terror is a war of terror and in that sense, though morally reprehensible and costly, has been success. Regime change and the destabilization of the Middle East has been the goal.
It's the US ruling elite that are the true deplorables.
@Sally Snyder[2]:Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 29, 2019 3:19:34 PM | linkWar on terror was the war on an entire civilization. Association/Replacement of the word terror was just for the public consumption. It's a simple strategy that makes the aggressors appear like the good guys who are there to defend themselves or the values they hold.
The war on civilization is never a failure for as long as the invader wins. Winning in this case means toppling a government, destabilizing an economy and dividing a population then leaving a country in chaos. It's not a foreign policy failure for the U.S. That is the policy working exactly as intended. All the talk later, where they claim that they had "bad intel" or they "made mistakes" or "miscalculated" is complete bullshit. They know what they're doing. If they didn't, they wouldn't keep doing it over and over in the exact same way.
War on the civilizations yields massive benefits. It's the shortcoming of the model of the western civilization that it continuously requires massive input that can't be achieved by the legal means of business and trade.
Jackrabbit , Apr 29, 2019 3:26:14 PM | linkOne wonders whose guest he isAuntie Gina the tit ular head of Al-CIA-duh/ Al Qaeda/ ISIS?
{A titular ruler, or titular head, is a person in an official position of leadership who possesses few, if any, actual powers. Sometimes a person may inhabit a position of titular leadership and yet exercise more power than would normally be expected, as a result of their personality or experience} ?
They'd follow the money if they really wanted to end the terrorism. In that regard, bombing Raqqa to hell was sure convenient as USA destroyed all the evidence - or at least they can make that claim.Bemildred , Apr 29, 2019 3:35:23 PM | linkSo he gets trotted out just in time to revive the "ISIS threat", and take the blame for various recent funny-smelling terrist attacks, people going to odd places like New Zealand and Sri Lanka to vent their spleens at Muslims and Christians, respectively. I have half-a-suspicion somebody is trying to get a religious war of some sort going.john , Apr 29, 2019 4:20:19 PM | linkThey don't seem to be having that much success with getting that war going, so I expect the attacks will go on.
Sally Snyder says:S , Apr 29, 2019 4:22:24 PM | linkThe one hundred thousand people that died in Iraq and Afghanistan due to terrorist activities...
look sister, we can't do much about the state of things, but we can at least relay a realistic account of the extent of the atrocity
we're talking 1 and a half million dead so far in Iraq and Afghanistan...and that's being conservative.
frances , Apr 29, 2019 4:30:55 PM | linkAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi, self declared caliph of ISIS, appeared in new video published today.Where? Where was it published? On what platform? Is it really that hard to trace the IPs? Turkey is really determined to get those S-400s. The Empire first threatened to withhold F-35s, then to impose sanctions, then to expel Turkey from NATO, then to move its bases to Greece. Still, Turkey wouldn't budge. Time to deploy some good old terrorism, so that the Empire will be obliged to come in and "help".
From zerohedge's comments, both links worth a read:Jackrabbit , Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | linkpreying mantis posted
who's your real daddy, Baghdadi?
S @17: Time to deploy some good old terrorism ...JOHN CHUCKMAN , Apr 29, 2019 5:09:27 PM | linkErdogan knows what he's dealing with, his government used to be a member of the conspiracy.
This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way.
Got my popcorn ready.
Laskarina , Apr 29, 2019 5:13:11 PM | linkI have long believed that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi actually is associated either with Moss ad or the CIA. That's why he's had so many miracle escapes. That's why they never catch him and often don't even know where he is. And we know that his ISIS never, never attacks Israeli targets or fat Saudi Prince targets.
Those would in fact be the targets of choice for any genuine jihad movement. Not Syria or Iraq, which are two states Israel has wanted to harm or eliminate for years. ISIS has always been a fraud, a very complex and deadly one, but a fraud.
Many years ago, even before this character posed as a "Syrian rebel" who was photographed meeting with John McCain, he was outed as a Mossad agent by the name of Simon Elliot.Walter , Apr 29, 2019 6:01:01 PM | linkThe guy in recent picture looks like one of Rita Katz's actors.
It is a show to threaten Turkey with the same as Sri Lanka (where they refine lots of Iranian crude...and more...look it up). Many ties to Iran/Sri Lanka....and to Turkey. Typical nazi thugs....bribes, arson, dynamite...and patsies...in this case maybe mossad actor? Why not> Cui Bono?Curtis , Apr 29, 2019 6:08:06 PM | linkAs to the locus of the actor? Paramount? Warner Bros? Probably not. Does it matter?
They're parading a ringer...don't fall for the gag. Erdo won't fall for it either.
Baghdadi has nice toys by his side and not just the AK-47 with the camo bit over the barrel. It looks like a camo case on night vision gear (or vidcam?) just below that, too. To quote the Joker: "Where does he get those wonderful toys?"Hoarsewhisperer , Apr 29, 2019 6:08:52 PM | linkAhh a new game of "where in the world is ..." except instead of bin Laden (or his stand-in) the guest in Pakistan living near a military base we have Baghdadi. Maybe Baghdadi lives in that area, too. (awaiting his execution for the media and masses). I doubt it though. I'm thinking Turkey or even Saudi Arabia.
ben , Apr 29, 2019 9:18:09 PM | link...
This move by Baghdadi could backfire in a big way.
Got my popcorn ready.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Apr 29, 2019 5:06:26 PM | 19It does seem unnecessarily cheeky/ fishy. If 'they' had fiendishly brilliant plan, why wouldn't they'd just do it and leave it to the intel wonks to figure out what went wrong? It's big news in the J-C International media. Al Jazeera "can't confirm the authenticity of the video."
A history of Wahhabism which is a problem for the globe; https://ahtribune.com/religion/155-a-history-of-wahhabism.html The KSA, whose ass the empire kisses daily, is the main funder for these clowns.
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Apr 12, 2019 | community.oilprice.com
Originally from: Mueller Report Brings Into Focus Obama's Attempted Coup Against Trump
shadowkin , 04/12/2019 09:51 PM
For those not aware Peter Strzok was the FBI agent who initiated the Trump investigation. As part of this he recruited Stefan Halper, a University of Cambridge professor with long standing ties to the CIA and Britain's MI6. Halper offered up his services to the Trump campaign as a foreign policy advisor, which apparently was his in.
In the aftermath of Strzok's role in this fiasco and his anti-Trump texts to his lover Lisa Page, he was initially only demoted and suspended by the FBI. This was later overruled and he was fired. Now, rightly I think, his actions are being investigated.
Strzok should have known from the beginning he was always going to be the fall guy if things went sideways. He's lucky this is the US. In many other countries he would have been found dead.
Edited April 12 by shadowkin
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Apr 20, 2019 | turcopolier.typepad.com
And there is more. George Papodopoulus was entrapped by individuals linked to British MI-6 and the CIA with offers to provide meetings with Russians and Putin. The Mueller account is a lie:
In late April 2016, Papadopoulos was told by London-based professor Joseph Mifsud, immediately after Mifsud 's return from a trip to Moscow, that the Russian government had obtained "dirt" on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. One week later, on May 6, 2016, Papadopoulos suggested to a representative of a foreign government that the Trump Campaign had received indications from the Russian government that it could assist the Campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to candidate Clinton.Papadopoulos shared information about Russian "dirt " with people outside of the Campaign, and the Office investigated whether he also provided it to a Campaign official. Papadopoulos and the Campaign officials with whom he interacted told the Office that they did · not recall that Papadopoulos passed them the information. Throughout the relevant period of time and for several months thereafter, Papadopoulos worked with Mifsud and two Russian nationals to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and the Russian government. That meeting never came to pass.
Once again, the Mueller team treats the provocateur -- -i.e., Joseph Mifsud -- -as some simple guy with ties to Russia's political elites. Another egregious lie. Mifsud was not working on behalf of Russia. He was deployed by MI-6. Disobedient Media has been on the forefront of exposing Mifsud's ties to western intelligence in general and the Brits in particular .
Mifsud's alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud's LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor's name and biography had been removed from the campus' website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for "years."
WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange likewise noted the connection between Mifsud and Smith in a Twitter thread, additionally pointing out his connections with Saudi intelligence: "[Mifsud] and Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee and eight-year member of the UK Security Vetting panel both trained Italian security services at the Link University in Rome and appear to both be present in this [photo]."
The photograph in question originated on Geodiplomatics.com, where it specified that Joseph Mifsud is indeed standing next to Claire Smith, who was attending a: " Training program on International Security which was organised by Link Campus University and London Academy of Diplomacy." The event is listed as taking place in October, 2012. This is highly significant for a number of reasons.
This is not a mere matter of Mueller and his team "failing" to disclose some important facts. If they were operating honestly they should have investigated Mifsud, Greenberg and Sater. But they did not. Two of the three -- Sater and Greenber -- alleged Russian stooges have ties to the FBI. And Mifsud has been living and working in the belly of the intelligence community.
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May 19, 2018 | theintercept.com
The FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election Glenn Greenwald
May 19 2018, 10:27 a.m. An extremely strange episode that has engulfed official Washington over the last two weeks came to a truly bizarre conclusion on Friday night. And it revolves around a long-time, highly sketchy CIA operative, Stefan Halper.Four decades ago, Halper was responsible for a long-forgotten spying scandal involving the 1980 election , in which the Reagan campaign -- using CIA officials managed by Halper, reportedly under the direction of former CIA Director and then-Vice-Presidential candidate George H.W. Bush -- got caught running a spying operation from inside the Carter administration. The plot involved CIA operatives passing classified information about Carter's foreign policy to Reagan campaign officials in order to ensure the Reagan campaign knew of any foreign policy decisions that Carter was considering.
Over the past several weeks, House Republicans have been claiming that the FBI during the 2016 election used an operative to spy on the Trump campaign, and they triggered outrage within the FBI by trying to learn his identity. The controversy escalated when President Trump joined the fray on Friday morning. "Reports are there was indeed at least one FBI representative implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president," Trump tweeted , adding: "It took place very early on, and long before the phony Russia Hoax became a "hot" Fake News story. If true -- all time biggest political scandal!"
In response, the DOJ and the FBI's various media spokespeople did not deny the core accusation, but quibbled with the language (the FBI used an "informant," not a "spy"), and then began using increasingly strident language to warn that exposing his name would jeopardize his life and those of others, and also put American national security at grave risk. On May 8, the Washington Post described the informant as "a top-secret intelligence source" and cited DOJ officials as arguing that disclosure of his name "could risk lives by potentially exposing the source, a U.S. citizen who has provided intelligence to the CIA and FBI."
The top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner, who spent much of last week working to ensure confirmation of Trump's choice to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, actually threatened his own colleagues in Congress with criminal prosecution if they tried to obtain the identity of the informant. "Anyone who is entrusted with our nation's highest secrets should act with the gravity and seriousness of purpose that knowledge deserves," Warner said.
But now, as a result of some very odd choices by the nation's largest media outlets, everyone knows the name of the FBI's informant: Stefan Halper. And Halper's history is quite troubling, particularly his central role in the scandal in the 1980 election. Equally troubling are the DOJ and FBI's highly inflammatory and, at best, misleading claims that they made to try to prevent Halper's identity from being reported.
To begin with, it's obviously notable that the person the FBI used to monitor the Trump campaign is the same person who worked as a CIA operative running that 1980 Presidential election spying campaign.
It was not until several years after Reagan's victory over Carter did this scandal emerge. It was leaked by right-wing officials inside the Reagan administration who wanted to undermine officials they regarded as too moderate, including then White House Chief of Staff James Baker, who was a Bush loyalist.
The NYT in 1983 said the Reagan campaign spying operation "involved a number of retired Central Intelligence Agency officials and was highly secretive." The article, by then-NYT reporter Leslie Gelb, added that its "sources identified Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge." Halper, now 73, had also worked with Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Alexander Haig as part of the Nixon administration.
When the scandal first broke in 1983, the UPI suggested that Halper's handler for this operation was Reagan's Vice Presidential candidate, George H.W. Bush, who had been the CIA Director and worked there with Halper's father-in-law, former CIA Deputy Director Ray Cline, who worked on Bush's 1980 presidential campaign before Bush ultimately became Reagan's Vice President. It quoted a former Reagan campaign official as blaming the leak on "conservatives [who] are trying to manipulate the Jimmy Carter papers controversy to force the ouster of White House Chief of Staff James Baker."
Halper, through his CIA work, has extensive ties to the Bush family. Few remember that the CIA's perceived meddling in the 1980 election -- its open support for its former Director, George H.W. Bush to become President -- was a somewhat serious political controversy. And Halper was in that middle of that, too.
In 1980, the Washington Post published an article reporting on the extremely unusual and quite aggressive involvement of the CIA in the 1980 presidential campaign. "Simply put, no presidential campaign in recent memory -- perhaps ever -- has attracted as much support from the intelligence community as the campaign of former CIA director Bush," the article said.
Though there was nothing illegal about ex-CIA officials uniting to put a former CIA Director in the Oval Office, the paper said "there are some rumblings of uneasiness in the intelligence network." It specifically identified Cline as one of the most prominent CIA official working openly for Bush, noting that he "recommended his son-in-law, Stefan A. Halper, a former Nixon White House aide, be hired as Bush's director of policy development and research."
In 2016, top officials from the intelligence community similarly rallied around Hillary Clinton. As The Intercept has previously documented :
Former acting CIA Director Michael Morell not only endorsed Clinton in the New York Times but claimed that "Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as an unwitting agent of the Russian Federation." George W. Bush's CIA and NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, pronounced Trump a "clear and present danger" to U.S. national security and then, less than a week before the election, went to the Washington Post to warn that "Donald Trump really does sound a lot like Vladimir Putin" and said Trump is "the useful fool, some naif, manipulated by Moscow, secretly held in contempt, but whose blind support is happily accepted and exploited."
So as it turns out, the informant used by the FBI in 2016 to gather information on the Trump campaign was not some previously unknown, top-secret asset whose exposure as an operative could jeopardize lives. Quite the contrary: his decades of work for the CIA -- including his role in an obviously unethical if not criminal spying operation during the 1980 presidential campaign -- is quite publicly known.
And now, as a result of some baffling choices by the nation's largest news organizations as well as their anonymous sources inside the U.S. Government, Stefan Halper's work for the FBI during the 2016 is also publicly known
Last night, both the Washington Post and New York Times -- whose reporters, like pretty much everyone in Washington, knew exactly who the FBI informant is -- published articles that, while deferring to the FBI's demands by not naming him, provided so many details about him that it made it extremely easy to know exactly who it is. The NYT described the FBI informant as "an American academic who teaches in Britain" and who "made contact late that summer with" George Papadopoulos and "also met repeatedly in the ensuing months with the other aide, Carter Page." The Post similarly called him "a retired American professor" who met with Page "at a symposium about the White House race held at a British university."
In contrast to the picture purposely painted by the DOJ and its allies that this informant was some of sort super-secret, high-level, covert intelligence asset, the NYT described him as what he actually is: "the informant is well known in Washington circles, having served in previous Republican administrations and as a source of information for the C.I.A. in past years."
Despite how "well known" he is in Washington, and despite publishing so many details about him that anyone with Google would be able to instantly know his name, the Post and the NYT nonetheless bizarrely refused to identity him, with the Post justifying its decision that it "is not reporting his name following warnings from U.S. intelligence officials that exposing him could endanger him or his contacts." The NYT was less melodramatic about it, citing a general policy: the NYT "has learned the source's identity but typically does not name informants to preserve their safety," it said.
In other words, both the NYT and the Post chose to provide so many details about the FBI informant that everyone would know exactly who it was, while coyly pretending that they were obeying FBI demands not to name him. How does that make sense? Either these newspapers believe the FBI's grave warnings that national security and lives would be endangered if it were known who they used as their informant (in which case those papers should not publish any details that would make his exposure likely), or they believe that the FBI (as usual) was just invoking false national security justifications to hide information it unjustly wants to keep from the public (in which case the newspapers should name him).
In any event, publication of those articles by the NYT and Post last night made it completely obvious who the FBI informant was, because the Daily Caller's investigative reporter Chuck Ross on Thursday had published an article reporting that a long-time CIA operative who is now a professor at Cambridge repeatedly met with Papadopoulos and Page. The article, in its opening paragraph, named the professor, Stefan Halper, and described him as "a University of Cambridge professor with CIA and MI6 contacts."
Ross' article, using public information, recounted at length Halper's long-standing ties to the CIA, including the fact that his father-in-law, Ray Cline, was a top CIA official during the Cold War, and that Halper himself had long worked with both the CIA and its British counterpart, the MI6. As Ross wrote: "at Cambridge, Halper has worked closely with Dearlove, the former chief of MI6. In recent years they have directed the Cambridge Security Initiative , a non-profit intelligence consulting group that lists 'UK and US government agencies' among its clients."
Both the NYT and Washington Post reporters boasted , with seeming pride, about the fact that they did not name the informant even as they published all the details which made it simple to identify him. But NBC News -- citing Ross' report and other public information -- decided to name him , while stressing that it has not confirmed that he actually worked as an FBI informant:
The professor who met with both Page and Papadopoulos is Stefan Halper, a former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations who has been a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues, according to public records.
There is nothing inherently untoward, or even unusual, about the FBI using informants in an investigation. One would expect them to do so. But the use of Halper in this case, and the bizarre claims made to conceal his identity, do raise some questions that merit further inquiry.
To begin with, the New York Times reported in December of last year that the FBI investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia began when George Papadopoulos drunkenly boasted to an Australian diplomat about Russian dirt on Hillary Clinton. It was the disclosure of this episode by the Australians that "led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia's attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump's associates conspired," the NYT claimed.
But it now seems clear that Halper's attempts to gather information for the FBI began before that. "The professor's interactions with Trump advisers began a few weeks before the opening of the investigation, when Page met the professor at the British symposium," the Post reported. While it's not rare for the FBI to gather information before formally opening an investigation, Halper's earlier snooping does call into question the accuracy of the NYT's claim that it was the drunken Papadopoulos ramblings that first prompted the FBI's interest in these possible connections. And it suggests that CIA operatives, apparently working with at least some factions within the FBI, were trying to gather information about the Trump campaign earlier than had been previously reported.
Then there are questions about what appear to be some fairly substantial government payments to Halper throughout 2016. Halper continues to be listed as a "vendor" by websites that track payments by the federal government to private contractors.
Earlier this week, records of payments were found that were made during 2016 to Halper by the Department of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, though it not possible from these records to know the exact work for which these payments were made. The Pentagon office that paid Halper in 2016, according to a 2015 Washington Post story on its new duties , "reports directly to Secretary of Defense and focuses heavily on future threats, has a $10 million budget."
It is difficult to understand how identifying someone whose connections to the CIA is a matter of such public record, and who has a long and well-known history of working on spying programs involving presidential elections on behalf of the intelligence community, could possibly endanger lives or lead to grave national security harm. It isn't as though Halper has been some sort of covert, stealth undercover asset for the CIA who just got exposed. Quite the contrary: that he's a spy embedded in the U.S. intelligence community would be known to anyone with internet access.
Equally strange are the semantic games which journalists are playing in order to claim that this revelation disproves, rather than proves, Trump's allegation that the FBI "spied" on his campaign. This bizarre exchange between CNN's Andrew Kaczynski and the New York Times' Trip Gabriel vividly illustrates the strange machinations used by journalists to justify how all of this is being characterized:
Despite what Halper actually is, the FBI and its dutiful mouthpieces have spent weeks using the most desperate language to try to hide Halper's identity and the work he performed as part of the 2016 election. Here was the deeply emotional reaction to last night's story from Brookings' Benjamin Wittes, who has become a social media star by parlaying his status as Jim Comey's best friend and long-time loyalist to security state agencies into a leading role in pushing the Trump/Russia story:
Wittes' claim that all of this resulted in the "outing" of some sort of sensitive "intelligence source" is preposterous given how publicly known Halper's role as a CIA operative has been for decades. But this is the scam that the FBI and people like Mark Warner have been running for two weeks: deceiving people into believing that exposing Halper's identity would create grave national security harm by revealing some previously unknown intelligence asset.
Wittes also implies that it was Trump and Devin Nunes who are responsible for Halper's exposure but he almost certainly has no idea of who the sources are for the NYT or the Washington Post. And note that Wittes is too cowardly to blame the institutions that actually made it easy to identify Halper -- the New York Times and Washington Post -- preferring instead to exploit the opportunity to depict the enemies of his friend Jim Comey as traitors.
Whatever else is true, the CIA operative and FBI informant used to gather information on the Trump campaign in the 2016 campaign has, for weeks, been falsely depicted as a sensitive intelligence asset rather than what he actually is: a long-time CIA operative with extensive links to the Bush family who was responsible for a dirty and likely illegal spying operation in the 1980 presidential election. For that reason, it's easy to understand why many people in Washington were so desperate to conceal his identity, but that desperation had nothing to do with the lofty and noble concerns for national security they claimed were motivating them.
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May 20, 2018 | heavy.com
Stefan Halper the University of Cambridge professor identified in multiple media outlets as the alleged FBI informant who made contact with Donald Trump campaign aides during the 2016 presidential election, has long-standing ties to both the CIA and former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Halper has been paid over $1 million by the U.S. government from 2012 through 2017, this official government database shows. He praised Hillary Clinton in a Russian news source during the presidential election, saying she would be a better choice for the UK and European Union than Trump. Halper's father-in-law was a long-time CIA man.
Halper was once caught up in a scandal over allegations that he led an operation within the Reagan campaign to dig up information on Jimmy Carter. In 1983, The New York Times reported that Halper was in charge of "an operation to collect inside information on Carter Administration foreign policy" that was "run in Ronald Reagan's campaign headquarters in the 1980 presidential campaign."
Some news outlets did not name Halper, such as The New York Times , but gave details about his background that were so specific that other media sources have named Halper as the alleged informant, whom Trump supporters are referring to as a "plant" or "mole" within the campaign. Heavy is naming Halper because his name has already been widely reported. He has not confirmed that he was an alleged informant, nor have authorities.
Trump has highlighted the informant in tweets without naming him. "I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes – and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!" the president wrote.
On May 19, 2018, Trump also wrote, "If the FBI or DOJ was infiltrating a campaign for the benefit of another campaign, that is a really big deal. Only the release or review of documents that the House Intelligence Committee (also, Senate Judiciary) is asking for can give the conclusive answers. Drain the Swamp!"
The DOJ's Rod Rosenstein then ordered the Inspector General to look into those claims, saying, that if "anyone did infiltrate or surveil participants in a presidential campaign for inappropriate purposes, we need to know about it and take appropriate action."
Who is Stefan Halper?
Here's what you need to know:
1. Halper, a Professor, Made Contact With Three Trump Campaign Officials During the Election & Has Provided Information to the CIA & FBI for Years, Reports Sayhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/2ljks9Mat_M
The New York Times described the academic, but didn't name him, as "an American academic who teaches in Britain" and who "made contact" in summer 2016 with Trump campaign aides Carter Page and George Papadopoulos. Halper is an University of Cambridge Professor with "ties to American and British intelligence," according to The Washington Times.
"Halper's sit-downs with Page reportedly started in early July 2016, undermining fired FBI Director James Comey's previous claim that the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign began at the end of that month," The New York Post reported.
People close to Papadopoulos told NBC that "he has described being summoned to England in September 2016 by Halper, who was offering to pay him to discuss energy issues involving Turkey, Israel and Cyprus, which was his area of expertise."
Getty Carter Page arrives at the courthouse on the same day as a hearing regarding Michael Cohen, longtime personal lawyer and confidante for President Donald Trump, at the United States District Court Southern District of New York, April 16, 2018 in New York City.
Papadopoulos told these sources, according to NBC, "that Halper attended the meetings with his assistant, a young Turkish woman. Papadopoulos said he found Halper's demeanor odd, and in retrospect believes Halper was working on behalf of an intelligence or law enforcement agency."
Page told NBC he met Halper several times on his farm but didn't find it suspicious at the time. He wrote the same on Twitter, saying, "Reporters keep asking me about my interactions with Prof. Halper. I found all our interactions to be cordial. Like this email I received about a year after I first met him. He never seemed suspicious. Just a few scholars exchanging ideas. He had interests in policy, and politics."
An email that Page posted was written by Halper to him in 2017 – after Trump was already president. Page said on Fox News that he was giving Halper the benefit of the doubt until more confirmation comes out.
The Washington Post reported that the professor (whom the Post didn't name) approached Carter Page at a symposium in England in mid-July 2016. The Post described him as a "longtime U.S. intelligence source." According to The Post, "the source in question engaged in a months-long pattern of seeking out and meeting three different Trump campaign officials."
The Post reported that the professor also met Trump campaign co-chairman Sam Clovis "for coffee in Northern Virginia, offering to provide foreign-policy expertise to the Trump effort." According to the Post, he invited Papadopoulos to "London to work on a research paper."
"For years, the professor has provided information to the FBI and the CIA," reports The Post.
The FBI "formally opened its counterintelligence investigation" into possible Russia collusion on July 31, 2016, the Post reported, after Papadopoulos "boasted to an Australian diplomat" that he knew Russia had information damaging to Hillary Clinton. As for Page, The Post reports he'd been on the "FBI's radar since at least 2013" because the FBI heard Russian spies "discussing their attempts to recruit him" on a wiretap.
Halper has been a professor at Cambridge in the Department of Politics and International Studies as Director of American Studies since 2001, according to the Institute for World Politics.
Stefan Halper "was appointed Senior Fellow at the Centre of International Studies and Director of The American Studies Programme in 2001. Professor Halper lectures on latter 20th and early 21st Century U.S. foreign policy, US-China relations, China in the World, Anglo-American relations, and contemporary international security issues," the bio reads.
During March 2016, Sputnik News reported that Halper believed "The victory of Hillary Clinton, who is more experienced and predictable than her Republican rival Donald Trump, in the US presidential elections will be more beneficial for the US-UK relations."
The exact quote per Sputnik News, which is controlled by the Russian government, reads, "I believe [Hillary] Clinton would be best for US-UK relations and for relations with the European Union. Clinton is well-known, deeply experienced and predictable. US-UK relations will remain steady regardless of the winner although Clinton will be less disruptive over time."
2. Halper's Father-in-Law, Ray Cline, Worked for the CIA During the Cuban Missile Crisis & Halper Advised George H.W. Bush's Presidential Campaignhttps://www.youtube.com/embed/mRPjxK3Sl-Y?version=3&rel=1&fs=1&autohide=2&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&wmode=transparent
Stefan Halper has a strong connection to the Central Intelligence Agency through his father-in-law, Ray Cline.
A 1980 story in The Washington Post mentions Cline. It says that the intelligence community was strongly supporting the then-presidential campaign of George H.W. Bush, who had been CIA director. One of those people was identified as Ray Cline, the father-in-law of Stefan Halper and a legendary figure within intelligence circles. "One top foreign policy and defense adviser is Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the CIA and director of intelligence and research at the State Department," The Post reported.
Bush ran for president that year but withdrew during the primaries, and Ronald Reagan became the party's nominee and eventual victor; George H.W. Bush then served as Reagan's vice president.
The Post reported at the time that Cline, who was "director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown University, had been delivering pro-CIA lectures on college campuses and elsewhere since 1973 when he left the government in disgust 'over what they were doing to the intelligence agencies.'" He was heckled at many of the stops, according to The Post.
The article says that Cline recommended Stefan Halper "a former Nixon White House aide, be hired as Bush's director of policy development and research."
NBC News reports that Cline "was the chief CIA analyst during the Cuban missile crisis."
According to a book on the Iran-Contra scandal, Cline's other son-in-law Roger Fontaine "made at least two visits to Guatemala in 1980 (with General Sumner) drafting the May 1980 Santa Fe Statement, which said that World War III was already underway in Central America against the Soviets and that Nicauragua was the enemy." The book alleges that some former Reagan aides felt that Halper "was receiving information from the CIA."
Palmer National Bank, where Halper worked for a time, was described in one book as "the DC hub by which Lt. Col. Oliver North sent arms and money to the anti-Sandinista guerrilla Contras in Nicaragua. One of Palmer's founders, Stefan Halper, had no previous banking experience but was George H.W. Bush's foreign policy director during Bush's unsuccessful 1980 presidential campaign." The book describes Halper as an "accomplished political operative."
Halper was on the board of directors of the National Intelligence Center alongside Ray Cline in the early 1980s.
Cline died at age 77 in 1996. Cline's obituary in The New York Times said he was survived by his wife of 54 years, Marjorie Wilson, and two daughters Sibyl MacKenzie and Judith Fontaine, of Arlington, Virginia. The obituary describes Cline as "the Central Intelligence Agency's chief analyst during the Cuban missile crisis and in retirement a fierce defender of the agency."
3. Halper Was Accused of Being in Charge of a Reagan Operation Digging Up Information on Jimmy Carter & Received Over $1 Million in Contracts With the U.S. GovernmentThe operation into Jimmy Carter was described as "highly secretive" and involving a "number of retired Central Intelligence Agency officials," The New York Times reported at the time.
"The sources identified Stefan A. Halper, a campaign aide involved in providing 24-hour news updates and policy ideas to the traveling Reagan party, as the person in charge," according to the 1983 Times article. Halper adamantly denied the accusations, telling UPI , "I never knew or talked to anyone in the Carter White House, the Carter administration or the Carter campaign throughout the course of the campaign and I never asked anybody to talk to anybody from the Carter camp or to get any information."
The newspaper identified Halper as "until recently deputy director of the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs and now chairman of the Palmer National Bank in Washington."
Cline told the newspaper that the story was "romantic fallacy" and rejected any theories about "an old CIA network." The Times reported there was already a "furor over revelations that Reagan campaign officials came into possession of Carter debate strategy papers" before the debate.
A Reagan campaign aide told the Times of Halper that "people talked about his having a network that was keeping track of things inside the Government, mostly in relation to the October surprise." The same article said that Halper worked "closely with David R. Gergen on the staff of George Bush." James A. Baker and Gergen were responsible for bringing Halper into the campaign, the story reports.
The old UPI article also contains this paragraph: "The former campaign official said the next step in the strategy would be to attempt to establish that the Carter campaign materials reached the Reagan camp through the vice presidential campaign staff of George Bush -- who was CIA director under President Ford."
In totality, Stefan Halper has ties to three Republican administrations. "The American-born academic previously served in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations," reports The New York Post. Halper is 73-years-old.
However, he also received a lot of money from the U.S. government during the Obama administration.
NBC News reports that Halper has worked as "a paid consultant to an internal Pentagon think tank known as the Office of Net Assessment, consulting on Russia and China issues." According to Gov.Tribe , Halper has been paid in recent years by the federal government for things including a Russa/China relationship study. Some of the money came from "defense agencies." Other large payments date back to 2012. According to an official U.S. government database, contracts with Stefan Halper from 2012 through 2017 total $1,058,160.
Some of the contracts are coded as "SPECIAL STUDIES/ANALYSIS- FOREIGN/NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY" and others as "SUPPORT- PROFESSIONAL: OTHER."
4. Halper Worked in Republican Administrations & for the Campaigns of Reagan & Bush Sr.The Institute for World Politics' biography reports that Halper served from 1971 to 1977 in the Nixon and Ford administrations. Among the positions he has held include the White House Domestic Counsel; assistant director of the White House Office of Management and Budget; and Assistant to the White House Chief of Staff.
He also served as "Legislative Assistant to Senator William Roth (R-Del.) and Special Counsel to the Joint Economic Committee" and was the national director for policy development for George H.W. Bush's presidential campaign from 1979-80 and national director of policy coordination for the Reagan-Bush presidential campaign in 1980.
Halper also served in the 1980s as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Politico-Military Affairs. His portfolio "included China-US relations, Taiwan, non-proliferation, technology transfer, unconventional warfare," the bio reads.
He spent six years working for three prominent banks in the 1980s. From 1984 through 2001, he served as "Senior Advisor to the Department of Defense and a Senior Advisor to the Department of Justice," the bio reads. He was a distinguished fellow at the Nixon Center, wrote a newspaper column, and wrote a research document into the Iraq War, according to the biography, which says he was educated at Stanford University and the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. The site says that Halper graduated from Oxford in 1971 with a doctor of Philosophy. (Bill Clinton was at Oxford from 1968 through spring 1970.)
In December 2016, The Telegraph reported, Halper was one of several academics who "unexpectedly resigned from their positions at the Cambridge Intelligence Seminar (CIS), an academic forum on the Western spy world." His reason for stepping down? "Unacceptable Russian influence" on the group, according to UK Telegraph .
According to The Telegraph, the group "was set up by official MI5 historian Professor Christopher Andrew" and holds seminars that previously were attended by Michael Flynn, among others. The concern about Russia derives from claims that a digital publishing host covering some of the group's costs "may be acting as a front for the Russian intelligence services," Telegraph reports.
5. The FBI Operation Was Dubbed 'Crossfire Hurricane' & Halper Is an AuthorThe New York Times reported that "FBI agents sent an informant to talk to two campaign advisers only after they received evidence that the pair had suspicious contacts linked to Russia during the campaign."
Papadopoulous pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI last year, and a federal surveillance warrant into Page has caused great controversy because of revelations that it was at least in part obtained through an unverified and salacious dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee through a law firm and research firm. That dossier was compiled by a former member of British intelligence named Christopher Steele.
Republicans in Congress have demanded that the FBI turn over documents about the informant, but the officials have refused.
The Times reports that the operation was called Crossfire Hurricane and was launched after the FBI learned information that Papadopoulos "was told that Moscow had compromising information on (Hillary) Clinton in the forms of 'thousands of emails'" before WikiLeaks released hacked emails. The FBI also started investigating Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn, ,who later became his National Security adviser.
Halper is the author of several books, including America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order , The Silence of the Rational Centre: Why American Foreign Policy is Failing , and The Beijing Consensus: Legitimizing Authoritarianism in our Time .
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Apr 20, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Zachary Smith , Apr 18, 2019 5:09:48 PM | 7 ">link
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military. NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff, either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive Outsiders.
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Apr 19, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Zachary Smith , Apr 18, 2019 5:09:48 PM | link
Assuming that it is correct, who might be the most likely culprit?Making that assumption, I want to focus on this part:
The U.S. embassy in Kuwait contacted a contracted private company to send the package to the U.S. on board of an American airline.Government is evil. Therefore hiring enough vetted US citizens to run an embassy is to be avoided if a Private Company can be paid to do the same job. It's been done in the Military. NASA. National Intelligence has been "privatized". (think Edward Snowden)
What shocked me most from the recent story here about Torturer Gina Haspel lying to Trump wasn't that she did it. The woman has no scruples at all, and her misbehavior is hardly a surprise. The NYT piece was just another story about an ignorant old man who can be easily managed. No, here is the part which jumped out at me.
"Houseflies buzzing around the Oval Office were drawing his attention, and ire.
After reading that I'd be surprised if there is a competent core of White House GOVERNMENT workers remaining there. Nobody to manage the flying vermin. It took the director of the CIA to send over some flypaper!
I doubt if the Trumpies could organize a 1-float parade, so the lax security could be almost anywhere in the chain of events. But my present vote is on a Private Company. It might be the transport company. If they don't have junior staffers in the Embassy to run simple missions like delivering a package, they probably don't have an in-house cleaning staff, either. So they may hire some locals to come in and mop and sweep the joint. Inexpensive Outsiders.
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Mar 19, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Before Gina became the Chief of Staff for Rodriguez, what role did she play in the waterboarding of two AQ operatives in Thailand? It appears that she was at least witting of what was going on. Did she have the authority to decide what measures to apply to the two? Did she make such decisions?
Those are facts still to be determined. I am inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. But there are others who I respect that are adamant in opposing her nomination. The only thing I know for sure is that her nomination will be a bloody and divisive political battle. If it comes down to embracing waterboarding as an appropriate method to use on suspected terrorists, then a majority of Americans are supportive of that practice and will cheer the appointment of Haspel.
That fact is a very sad and disturbing commentary on what America is or has become. Tolerating torture and excusing such an activity in the name of national security is the same justification that Stalin and Castro employed to punish dissidents. It is true that one man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter.
Let me be clear about my position. If Gina was in fact the Chief of Base and oversaw the application of the waterboarding and other inhuman treatment then she lacks the moral authority to head the CIA. Unfortunately, the United States has a long history of overlooking human rights violations and war crimes.
Students of WW II will recall that US military intelligence recruited and protect Klaus Barbie, the Butcher of Lyon, as an asset after the war. He murdered Jews and sent others to Auschwitz. He should have been hung. Instead, we turned a blind eye and gave him a paycheck.
Cee , 18 March 2018 at 12:55 PM
PT,steve , 18 March 2018 at 01:11 PMI've read that she enjoyed torture and mocked a prisoner who was drooling by accused him of faking it. I never knew anything about her sexual orientation but now I have to consider if she's so cruel because she hates men.
No to her confirmation.
IIRC, Haspel was the chief of staff to whom Rodriguez refers. That does not sound like a bit player. Would you say that Kelly is a bit player in the Trump admin? As you say, we should know the facts, but so far it looks like she both participated in torture and in its cover-up.tv , 18 March 2018 at 01:11 PMSteve
Is waterboarding "torture?" It does not draw blood nor leave any physical damage. Psychological damage? These ARE admitted terrorists.BillWade , 18 March 2018 at 01:20 PMWith all the crap going on at the FBI, the last thing we need now is a divisive candidate for any top level government position (torture advocacy is divisive for many of us).Publius Tacitus -> tv... , 18 March 2018 at 01:23 PMA woman, a lesbian, who cares as long as they are a capable and decent law-abiding individual.
Yes, waterboarding is torture. We considered it so egregious that we prosecuted Japanese military officers after WWII for using it on POWs.Apenultimate said in reply to turcopolier ... , 18 March 2018 at 01:26 PMAnd where do you get "admitted" terrorists from? In America, even with suspected terrorists, there is the principle of innocent until proven guilty. At least we once believed in that standard.
And I very much respect you for your position on this (it is this American's view as well).Laura , 18 March 2018 at 01:42 PMWhat amazes me (and yet doesn't) is the example of Rodriguez's supposed introspection "How bad could this be?" Really?!? That just strikes me as not having any feel for the media, US citizenry, or even common sense, and just reinforces the feeling that those at the upper echelons are completely out of touch or alternatively are just lying/posturing to present themselves in a better light.
PT -- Thank you. Much to consider in these times. I come down on the "no torture and waterboarding is torture" side of the debate but am also just eager for some competence and professional experience in key positions.Kooshy , 18 March 2018 at 01:42 PMThat these positions may be mutually exclusive says a great deal about our current situation. Again, thank you, for your opinions and information.
A torturer is a torturer, no matter how one try to glaze it, or sugar coat it. If one is against torture, or the fancy name for it EIT, one should come out and say it like it is. This lady is accused of torturing captives ( enemy combatant) that can't and will not go away unless she come clean.At the end of the day that don't matter, since as a policy, and base on your own statement, this country's government will prosecut and punish for liking of torture but not torture and tortures. And, furthermore, is not even willing to do away with it, per it's elected president. Trying to show a clean, moral, democracy on the hilltop image, is a BS and a joke.
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Apr 17, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk
Vinnie Pooh , April 17, 2019 at 14:07
Yeah, my eyes almost popped out of my head as I read it in the news. Direct brazen manipulation of your boss, who happens to be a commander in chief of a nuclear power. And no, I don't hear any howls about treason and conspiracy from across the pond.
John Dowser | Apr 17, 2019 2:16:43 AM | 75
"Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied".This would indicate, if true, that the Brits desired to manipulate and used the CIA here mainly as conduit to influence Trump. It would make more sense, historically as well, interpreting causality and motive this way.
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Apr 17, 2019 | craigmurray.org.uk
Sharp Ears , April 17, 2019 at 12:06
Crispa , April 17, 2019 at 12:07Gina Haspel the CIA torturer extraordinaire.
Q. Where are the Skripals?
N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:34I took note when I read that on the Guardian website late last night. What struck me was the treatment of the statement as if it could be true, but in more than one way.
The idea that Trump was kidded along in this way with photos of suffering children is similar to that which allegedly persuaded him to bomb Syria (along with the UK and France) after the more recent also alleged Douma chemical weapons attacks. So who actually was telling him porkies and why or is this just another myth to prove Trump's crassness – in which case there is no need to make anything up.
Even if the story is true, the article accepts it as fact and in no way qualifies it, which is just plain misrepresentation as Craig points out.
The reference to the two Russian operatives at that time is certainly a give away one way and another – but nothing in the article to highlight that inconsistency.
Strange timing too for the appearance of the article too. No doubt there will be a response from the Russian Embassy.
N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:23Trump brings together stupidity, narcissistic mental illness and obnoxiousness such that when an official has to deal with him their attitude must surely be to tell the moron whatever gets him to do what they want as soon as possible, so they don't have to spend any more time than necessary in a room with him.
He lies all the time – the guy can't stop lying – nobody wants to spend time with a person like that – even his wife can't stand the sight of him – and it doesn't matter what it is that you tell him or show him.
Trump doesn't give a toss about suffering children or suffering anyone else, so it's not likely that he was persuaded by the kind of argument that runs from injured children to the need for US diplomatic action.
The question is who was behind the anti-Russian side of the Skripal story and why. Not much progress will be made without looking at the British defence review and the huge increase in military spending that warfare interests have moved Gavin Williamson's lips to call for.
Ken Kenn , April 17, 2019 at 13:40"(E)xtremely clear CCTV footage of the duck feeding"? So there are fixed cameras watching where the ducks swim in Queen Elizabeth's Park in Salisbury, are there? Because I haven't been able to find even some lamp posts they might be secured to. ( Some images .) Which is not to say the Skripals weren't photographed. And how's the Nikolai Glushkov inquest going?
Phil , April 17, 2019 at 15:01Trump forgets he lies in minutes. He'd not heard about Julian Assange? If I was reporter I would have played him his words from my laptop and ask: Mr President is this you or a fake President?
Actually he is a fake President as most US Presidents are. The man's a dunce. I thought after George W Bush US Presidents couldn't get any worse but know history hits us up the backside with a banjo yet again.
Simple really: Show the video of the Skripal actively feeding the ducks – blank the kids faces and we'll be able to see them in all of their pre poisoned glory.
All this has been done before by the MS – The London Bridge attackers – 7/7 and so on.
So why not show the video? Because it shows something(s) which they want to hide. I have my views as to why, as do others but once you start lying you have to develop a good memory and ' British Intelligence ' is a misnomer.
It's quackery.
Nicholas Kollerstrom , April 17, 2019 at 12:26Rob Slane from the Blogmire interviewed the mother of the children who fed the ducks and she said she was shown "extremely clear CCTV footage".
N_ , April 17, 2019 at 12:37Let us not for one moment forget: Yulia musty be alive somewhere. I reckon they did in Sergei – serve him right for being a double (or triple) agent – but Yulia must still be around. She TOLD US in her video she was fine and getting better.
Thank god for Craig Murray and the Off-Guardian, they have preserved our sanity over this mad story, this maddest of British Intel cockups.
Gerard Hobley , April 17, 2019 at 12:27@Nicholas – I'd advise delaying the conclusion that it was a cockup, except in the sense that in most military and intelligence operations something cocks up – until we hear what happens with British military spending plans.
John2o2o , April 17, 2019 at 19:21Someone said to me on Twitter that confirmation of Novichock was from a Mass Spec of the nerve agent bound to some enzyme (probably acetyl cholinesterase). Is this really the official line? If so it's rubbish. Whoever made such a claim was clearly no chemist. Acetyl Cholinesterase weighs about 66700 Daltons and the nerve agent weighed, say between 200 and 400 daltons. Firstly a mass spectrum of the protein would be that of the protein plus or minus anything upto about 300 water molecules Which makes the mass (69400 +/- 2700) and a multitude of other possible ions or other factors bound to it. The error in the mass of the protein clearly exceeds the mass of the nerve agent. Given that, because of the blinding uncertainties as to what species are actually hitting the detector in the mass spectrometer, no-one anywhere attempts to study ligands bound to proteins by mass spec and certainly not one of this size, why would they do it in this case?
Casual Observer , April 17, 2019 at 12:45They make it up Gerard.
Unfortunately most people are not chemists and therefore lack the required knowledge to be skeptical about such claims.
Northern , April 17, 2019 at 13:29Apply the smell test ?
The CIA Director tells outright lies to her boss, who as a result approves a stern national rebuke.
In a cartoon version of life where Dick Dastardly gets to be an intelligence supremo, and a total dummy gets to be President, this would be highly likely. Needless to say, to believe such a scenario would exist in the real world requires a massive suspension of logic.
More likely there's something coming down the track that requires Haspel, and or the CIA, to be discredited prior to its becoming visible to the public ?
Brendan , April 17, 2019 at 13:04What could possibly be coming down the track that isn't comparable to what we already know about Haspel and the CIA though?
If you can straight faced maintain support for an admitted and documented human rights abuser who heads a non accountable government spy agency that has been extra judicially torturing, assassinating and over throwing any who stands in its way for 70 years; what on earth could be about to come out that's suddenly going to convince our bought and paid for media, and by extension the general public, that these monsters have been discredited?
John2o2o , April 17, 2019 at 19:22UK spooks are switching to damage limitation mode, with the help of the Deborah Haynes of Sky and II:
"Update: UK security sources say they're unaware of children hospitalised because of #novichok or wildlife killed in #Skripal attack. May have been a photo of a dead swan though not evidence swan was killed by #Novichok. If that's true, I wonder what these images used by CIA were! "
https://twitter.com/haynesdeborah/status/1118409471754153984
Goose , April 17, 2019 at 13:12lies?
I'm not a conspiracy theorist –
I'm a conspiracy analyst.Gore Vidal
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Mar 19, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations -- one that demanded torture, one that covered it up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants -- than whether Gina Haspel becomes director of the CIA.
Haspel oversaw the torture of human beings in Thailand as the chief of a CIA black site in 2002. Since then, she's worked her way up to deputy director at the CIA. With current director Mike Pompeo slated to move to Foggy Bottom, President Donald Trump has proposed Haspel as the Agency's new head.
Haspel's victims waiting for death in Guantanamo cannot speak to us, though they no doubt remember their own screams as they were waterboarded. And we can still hear former CIA officer John Kiriakou say : "We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information."
It was Kiriakou who exposed the obsessive debate over the effectiveness of torture as false. The real purpose of torture conducted by those like Gina Haspel was to seek vengeance, humiliation, and power. We're just slapping you now, she would have said in that Thai prison, but we control you, and who knows what will happen next, what we're capable of? The torture victim is left to imagine what form the hurt will take and just how severe it will be, creating his own terror.
Haspel won't be asked at her confirmation hearing to explain how torture works, but those who were waterboarded under her stewardship certainly could.
I met my first torture victim in Korea, where I was adjudicating visas for the State Department. Persons with serious criminal records are ineligible to travel to the United States, with an exception for dissidents who have committed political crimes. The man I spoke with said that under the U.S.-supported military dictatorship of Park Chung Hee he was tortured for writing anti-government verse. He was taken to a small underground cell. Two men arrived and beat him repeatedly on his testicles and sodomized him with one of the tools they had used for the beating. They asked no questions. They barely spoke to him at all.
Though the pain was beyond his ability to describe, he said the subsequent humiliation of being left so utterly helpless was what really affected his life. It destroyed his marriage, sent him to the repeated empty comfort of alcohol, and kept him from ever putting pen to paper again. The men who destroyed him, he told me, did their work, and then departed, as if they had others to visit and needed to get on with things. He was released a few days later and driven back to his apartment by the police. A forward-looking gesture.
The second torture victim I met was while I was stationed in Iraq. The prison that had held him was under the control of shadowy U.S.-trained Iraqi security forces. Inside, masked men bound him at the wrists and ankles and hung him upside-down. He said they neither asked him questions nor demanded information. They did whip his testicles with a leather strap, then beat the bottoms of his feet and the area around his kidneys. They slapped him. They broke the bones in his right foot with a steel rod, a piece of rebar ordinarily used to reinforce concrete.
It was painful, he told me, but he had felt pain before. What destroyed him was the feeling of utter helplessness, the inability to control things around him as he once had. He showed me the caved-in portion of his foot, which still bore a rod-like indentation with faint signs of metal grooves.
Gina Haspel is the same as those who were in the room with the Korean. She is no different than those who tormented the Iraqi.
As head of a black site, Haspel had sole authority to halt the questioning of suspects, but she allowed torture to continue. New information and a redaction of earlier reporting that said Haspel was present for the waterboarding and torture of Abu Zubaydah (she was actually the station chief at the black site after those sessions) makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners there, but pay it little mind. The confusion arises from the government's refusal to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. So many records have yet to be released and those that have been are heavily redacted. Then there are the tapes of Zubaydah's waterboarding, which Haspel later pushed to have destroyed.
Arguing over just how much blood she has in her hands is a distraction from the fact that she indeed has blood on her hands.
Gina Haspel is now eligible for the CIA directorship because Barack Obama did not prosecute anyone for torture; he merely signed an executive order banning it in the future. He did not hold any truth commissions, and ensured that almost all government documents on the torture program remained classified. He did not prosecute the CIA officials who destroyed videotapes of the torture scenes.
Obama ignored the truth that sees former Nazis continue to be hunted some 70 years after the Holocaust: that those who do evil on behalf of a government are individually responsible. "I was only following orders" is not a defense of inhuman acts. The purpose of tracking down the guilty is to punish them, to discourage the next person from doing evil, and to morally immunize a nation-state.
To punish Gina Haspel "more than 15 years later for doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders, would be a travesty and a disgrace," claims one of her supporters. "Haspel did nothing more and nothing less than what the nation and the agency asked her to do, and she did it well," said Michael Hayden, who headed the CIA during the height of the Iraq war from 2006-2009.
Influential people in Congress agree. Senator Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which will soon review Haspel's nomination, said , "I know Gina personally and she has the right skill set, experience, and judgment to lead one of our nation's most critical agencies."
"She'll have to answer for that period of time, but I think she's a highly qualified person," offered Senator Lindsey Graham. Democratic Senator Bill Nelson defended Haspel's actions, saying they were "the accepted practice of the day" and shouldn't disqualify her.
His fellow Democrat Senator Dianne Feinstein, ranking member on the Intelligence Committee, signaled her likely acceptance, saying , "Since my concerns were raised over the torture situation, I have met with her extensively, talked with her She has been, I believe, a good deputy director." Senator Susan Collins added that Haspel "certainly has the expertise and experience as a 30-year employee of the agency." John McCain, a victim of torture during the Vietnam War, mumbled only that Haspel would have to explain her role.
Nearly alone at present, Republican Senator Rand Paul says he will oppose Haspel's nomination. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich, both Democrats, have told Trump she is unsuitable and will likely also vote no.
Following World War II, the United States could have easily executed those Nazis responsible for the Holocaust, or thrown them into some forever jail on an island military base. It would have been hard to find anyone who wouldn't have supported brutally torturing them at a black site. Instead, they were put on public trial at Nuremberg and made to defend their actions as the evidence against them was laid bare. The point was to demonstrate that We were better than Them.
Today we refuse to understand what Haspel's victims, and the Korean writer, and the Iraqi insurgent, already know on our behalf: unless Congress awakens to confront this nightmare and deny Gina Haspel's nomination as director of the CIA, torture will have transformed us and so it will consume us. Gina Haspel is a torturer. We are torturers. It is as if Nuremberg never happened.
Peter Van Buren, a 24-year State Department veteran, is the author of We Meant Well : How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People and Hooper's War : A Novel of WWII Japan. He tweets @WeMeantWell.
Douglas K. March 19, 2018 at 3:19 am
Covering up torture is quite possibly the worst thing Obama did. (I'd put it neck-and-neck with targeted killing.) This nation desperately needs a president who will expose all of these horrors, and appoint an attorney general who will prosecute these acts as war crimes.I Don't Matter , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:49 amTrump likes waterboarding. He said so himself. One assumes he meant, being a whimpering coward himself, when someone else does it to someone else. But who knows? Enjoy judge Gorsuch.Mark Thomason , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:49 am"doing what her country asked her to do, and in response to what she was told were lawful orders"Peter Hopkins , says: March 19, 2018 at 6:52 amTo complete the parallel, we would need to prosecute and punish those who asked her to do it, and those who told her those orders were lawful. Instead, some are doing paintings of their toes, some are promoted to be Federal judges, and some are influential professors at "liberal" law schools. Why punish *only* her?
Those who forget the past are destined to repeat it.Ian , says: March 19, 2018 at 7:10 amAs we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them.Bagby , says: March 19, 2018 at 8:00 amI was not in the least surprised at reports that a known torturer was slated to head the CIA, and I expected quick confirmation. Such is my opinion of our ruling classes. I am in full support of Mr. Van Buren's thesis. However, Pro Publica, which seems to have been the source of much reporting of Haspel's torture record, has retracted the claim that Haspel had tortured in Thailand. Mr. Van Buren quotes another source from his blog that supports the thesis that Haspel is a torturer. How does one know what to believe? Whatever Haspel may be, we can be sure the CIA will continue to torture, detain people without charge, assassinate and terrorize with its own drone force, and cause mayhem around the world and at home. No one can be trusted with the Ring of Power.Centralist , says: March 19, 2018 at 8:19 amIts because we lost our sense of what makes us who we are. We are an empire that dances for private interests. In Rome they were called families and led by patricians, they had money private guards, gladiators, and even street people supporting them. In the Modern USA they are called Interest Groups and/or Corporations. They are lead by CEOs and instead of gladiators they have Lawyers. Our being better matters less then their own squabbles which is why a torturer could reach the highest seat in intel. The majority of Americans have lost their sense of being Americans instead they are Republicans, Democrats, etc, etc. Things that once use to be part of an American have come to define us.Banger , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:09 amAmerican Exceptionalism is perhaps the most toxic ideology since Nazism and Stalinism. It says that the United States is always virtuous even when it tortures, when it bombs towns, villages, cities in the name of "freedom or installs dictators, military governments, trains torturers, and, yes, rapes and loots in the name of "democracy."Peter Van Buren , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:31 amAt least this appointment along with the election of Trump shows the true face of the United States in international affairs. When we face the fact we are (a) an oligarchy and (b) a brutal Empire we might have a chance to return to something more human. Few readers, even of TAC, will want to look at our recent history of stunning brutality and lack of interest in even being in the neighborhood of following international law.
CIA has purposefully refused to disclose Haspel's role for a decade+ They have selectively released information last week to discredit those criticizing her. I don't think we should play their game, letting them set the agenda. Instead, I declaim torture itself and any role she played in it, whether she poured the water or kept the books.Kurt Gayle , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:34 amDoes Peter Van Buren's criticism of the CIA's Haspel put him at risk?Peter Van Buren , says: March 19, 2018 at 9:35 amIn the 2003 film "Love Actually" the British Prime Minister (played by Hugh Grant) jokes with a Downing Street employee Natalie (Martine McCutcheon):
"PM: You live with your husband? Boyfriend, three illegitimate but charming children? –
"NATALIE: No, I've just split up with my boyfriend, so I'm back with my mum and dad for a while.
"PM: Oh. I'm sorry.
"NATALIE: No, it's fine. I'm well shot of him. He said I was getting fat.
"PM: I beg your pardon?
"NATALIE: He said no one's going to fancy a girl with thighs the size of big tree trunks. Not a nice guy, actually, in the end.
"PM: Right You know, being Prime Minister, I could just have him murdered.
"NATALIE: Thank you, sir. I'll think about it.
"PM: Do – the SAS are absolutely charming – ruthless, trained killers are just a phone call away."It's just a film. It's just a joke. But the joke works because the public knows that – in reality – the security services have the skills-sets and the abilities, to do damage anyone they want to do damage to -- and to probably get away with it.
Fast forward to January, 2017 and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer telling MSNBC's Rachael Maddow that President-elect Donald Trump is "being really dumb" by criticizing the intelligence community and its assessments on Russia's cyber activities: Shumer: "Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you, So even for a practical, supposedly hard-nosed businessman, he's being really dumb to do this." No, Shumer wasn't joking. He was serious.
Fast forward again to yesterday, March 17, 2018: Former CIA Director John Brennan wasn't joking when he reacted to the firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe -- and President Donald Trump's tweeted celebration of it -- by tweeting this attack against Trump:
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America America will triumph over you."
Obama UN Representative Samantha Power followed up on the Brennan tweet with this:
"Not a good idea to piss off John Brennan."
When public officials and former public officials -- like Shumer, Brennan and Power -- make such public statements it must necessarily have a chilling effect on public criticism of the security services.
After all, none of the three are joking. They're serious. And the American people know that they're serious.
Does Peter Van Buren's criticism of CIA operative Haspel put him at risk?
New information makes it less clear whether Haspel oversaw the torture of all of the prisoners at her black site, but pay it little mind. The confusion is because the government refuses to tell us what Haspel actually did as a torturer. Arguing over just how much blood she has on her hands is a distraction when she indeed has blood on her hands.Wilfred , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:25 amThe idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency. If the Agency wishes to clarify her role, as was done via trial for the various Nazis at Nuremberg, we can deal with her actions more granularly.
Since we have not had any more successful attacks on the scale of 9-11, it is very easy to be scrupulous regarding rough treatment of terrorists.furbo , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:45 amBut if we had suffered a dozen or more such attacks, of increasing magnitude and maybe involving nuclear weapons, how many of you would still be condemning Mrs Haspel et al.? Or would you then be complaining they had not used water-boarding enough?
The 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, was caught weeks before 9-11. Investigators figured out he was up to no good, tried to get permission to search his computer, but were denied. The U.S. Government carefully protected his privacy rights. So are you pleased with the outcome, Mr van Buren?
I'm sorry – this whole piece is a massive non sequitur. Ms. Haspel has no 'blood' on her hands as US extreme interrogation techniques (sleep deprivation, uncomfortable positions, waterboarding) didn't draw any. They are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones. US techniques might have been bad policy – won't argue – but lets not fall for a false equivalency.Sid Finster , says: March 19, 2018 at 10:59 amMs. Haspel was an agent of her government, acting on it's orders under it's policies and guidelines. Which leads to
Nuremberg. The Nuremberg tribunals (they were military tribunals – not trials) were conducted by a victorious military force against a defeated military force. They were widely criticized as vengeance even by such august people as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Stone and associate Justice Douglas. There won't be a 'Nuremberg' tribunal because Al Qaida didn't defeat the United States, and you'd have to convict not just Ms. Haspel, but a sizeable portion of the U.S. Government.
And lastly there's this from a comment of the authors: "The idea is her participation on any level at the black site is sufficient to disqualify her from heading the Agency." Utter nonsense. That was the mission of the Agency at that time. It's like saying a 33yr old Drone Pilot who takes out an ISIS/Al Qaida operative as well as 15 civilians is disqualified to be the Sec Def 2 decades later.
Just stop.
Sally Stewart , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:11 amIf nothing else, the appointment of Bloody Gina as CIA head finally drives a wooden stake through the heart of the myth that "we're The Good Guys(tm)!" or its cousin "all we gotta do is elect Team D and we can be The Good Guys(R) again!"
We demonize Russia at every opportunity, but I don't see Russia rewarding torturers by appointing them to high office.
Douglas K. What are you talking about? Covered up? You mean Bush http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/175/end-the-use-of-torture/Stephen J. , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:12 amA lot of info below on the War criminals at large.connecticut farmer , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:49 am
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
May 26, 2015 Do We Need Present Day Nuremberg Trials? http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2015/05/do-we-need-present-day-nuremberg-trials.htmlAnd
March 9, 2018 Are We Seeing Government By Gangsters? http://graysinfo.blogspot.ca/2018/03/are-we-seeing-government-by-gangsters.html
I didn't know too much about this woman's background until I read that Rand Paul opposes her nomination. I tend to take notice whenever Rand Paul holds forth on any subject. All I can say is that if her actual record even approximates what has been alleged, then this woman is unfit for the post–Nuremberg or no Nuremberg.Winston , says: March 19, 2018 at 11:54 am"As we've proved, we're not better than them. Any of them." Oh, -PLEASE-, spare us the hyperbole! WE burn alive captives held in cages? WE saw off their heads?Lex Talionis , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:00 pmThousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs.
All of the torturers should be brought to justice. So should all of the officials who ordered or authorized torture.bob sykes , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:16 pmThere is no statute of limitations on capital Federal crimes. For a U.S. citizen to kill via torture is a capital Federal crime, no matter where the torture took place. If statutes of limitations make it too late to prosecute some acts of torture, it is not too late to bring about some measure of justice by making torturers pariahs. As many sexual harassers have recently learned, there is no statute of limitations in the court of public opinion.
The story linking her to torture has been formally retracted. She had nothing to do with torture anywhere. How about a retraction of this story and an apology.Youknowho , says: March 19, 2018 at 12:30 pmI do not know whether to admire Mr. van Buren's idealism or be astonished at his naivete. Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence? People in Latin America know better than to believe the U.S. protestations of virtue. They know about torturers, and the U.S. support for them.Tyrone Slothrop , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:07 pmPersonally, I prefer that the cruelty should be, as Lincoln once put it, "unalloyed by the base metal of hypocrisy"
bob sykes: you should read Pro Publica's retraction ( https://www.propublica.org/article/cia-cables-detail-its-new-deputy-directors-role-in-torture ) of the claim that Haspel was in charge of the Thai black site when Abu Zubaydeh was tortured. She was put in charge there not long after and oversaw the waterboarding of at least one prisoner, and later followed orders to destroy the tapes of waterboarding at that site. Your claim that " She had nothing to do with torture anywhere" is incorrect.Near Rockaway , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:31 pmWinston: why do you suppose "thousands of US Navy and Air Force pilots have been waterboarded as part of their Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (S.E.R.E.) training programs"? Is it not to prepare them for the possibility of what we call torture when used by our adversaries?
furbo: your contention that " US extreme interrogation techniques are not equivalent to forcible sodomy, beating the genitals, pounding the kidneys, or breaking bones" is wrong. The UN Convention against Torture, to which the US is a signatory, states " For the purposes of this Convention, the term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person " Ask anyone who has been waterboarded whether that fits the official definition?
"Has he never heard of the School of the Americas, of sinister reputation, or the Condor Plan, aided and abetted by U.S. intelligence?"Chris Mallory , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:47 pmEvil stuff. And we're still paying for it. Keeping Haspel out of the Director's chair is a basic step toward avoiding more such needless, stupid evil.
Wilfred, the problem was not that the Feds protected Zacarias Moussaoui's right to privacy. The problem is that it let any of the 20 Arab Muslims into the US in the first place. Closing our borders and mass deportations would have been the best thing to do in the aftermath of 9/11, not torture and invasions.b. , says: March 19, 2018 at 1:58 pmVery well put. Lest we forget: Bush also delivered the stern warning that "war crimes will be prosecuted, war criminals will be punished, and it will be no defense to say, 'I was just following orders'."Wilfred , says: March 19, 2018 at 4:28 pm
- http://www.cnn.com/2003/fyi/news/03/18/iraq/
- https://theintercept.com/2018/03/15/washington-breaks-out-the-just-following-orders-nazi-defense-for-cia-director-designate-gina-haspel/
Ceterum censeo: given that the Iraq invasion and occupation was an act of aggressive war in violation of the UN Charter and thus illegal under US law, it is not just torturers but also war criminals in government and general staff that have to be considered in the contexts of these words.
Chris Mallory (Mar 19 @1:47 p.m.), I agree with you. We shouldn't be letting them in.But if someone had sneaked-a-peek at Moussaoui's laptop during the 3 weeks they had him before 9-11, we might have been able to thwart the attack altogether. (And the Press has been strangely incurious about investigating whoever it was who issued the injunction protecting Moussie's precious computer). This type of hand-wringing cost us 3,000 lives. Even more, considering the Afghan & 2nd Iraq wars would never have been launched, were it not for 9-11.
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Apr 17, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
William Gruff , Apr 16, 2019 4:41:41 PM | link
"If Trump were not in on the schemes he would just fire his underlings!"
This sentiment indicates a failure to understand the power dynamics at play here. Haspel is not the "underling" . Trump is the underling. Sure, being that he is also an oligarch makes Trump's role in the show complicated, but Presidents are installed in order to serve the oligarchy, and the CIA are top level strategists/enforcers for the oligarchy.
In the real organization chart for the empire the CIA is above the President. This has been the case in the US since Kennedy.
Trump cannot fire Haspel or Pompeo. They can fire him, though, and with a sniper's bullet if they want.
Unfortunately for the oligarchy, that would cause additional complications at a time when they have lots of tricky and inexplicably unstable (for them) operations ongoing, which is why they are just steering Trump around instead of replacing him. And Trump is willfully cooperating, even if they are not filling him in on the plans.
Trump will not fire Haspel. He can't. He's just an actor playing a role in a show, and Haspel is one of the producers/writers of that show. If she doesn't put firing in the script then Trump cannot say those lines. I doubt he really wants to anyway.
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Apr 16, 2019 | www.moonofalabama.org
Jen , Apr 16, 2019 7:32:35 PM | link
The New York Times article seems whiffy to me. (Is anything from the NYT not whiffy?) The article is the work of no fewer than five writers and the part about Donald Trump being swayed by pictures of sick children in hospital and dead ducks seems a bit like a game of Chinese whispers.
What's the real agenda though behind that article? It's to put Gina Haspel in a favourable light at the same time as it's criticising Trump. Is the NYT promoting Gina Haspel as someone who deserves a more influential position than the nation's top torturer? She wouldn't be the first such criminal being subtly encouraged to try for DJT's job in the future.
Jen , Apr 16, 2019 7:39:15 PM | link
ADKC @ 56 (and Koen @ 50):Jackrabbit , Apr 16, 2019 7:59:38 PM | linkBetter not play too many of those "Call of Duty" video games either. You might find that being a pretend mercenary shooting up innocent people in foreign lands is not just for the purpose of wasting a half of day on mindless entertainment.
Jen @59Zachary Smith , Apr 16, 2019 8:00:12 PM | linkI see it as a complex exercise in CYA. They need to reinforce certain narratives.
>> The media was right about Trump: he has a soft spot for Russia.
>> Trump cares about people (and even ducks) - remember how he bombed Syria because of the babies? Now Trump is super concerned about the people of Venezuela. What a humanitarian!
>> Russia has no reason to oppose USA (in Venezuela or elsewhere) - they could just contact their friend Trump! To do otherwise demonstrates malicious intent.
@ Bart Hansen #1As of almost 8 PM, there are 35 comments. In a national newspaper on a story like this? There must be a committee cherry picking them for "suitability" - the collection is as fake as the article. Wonderful Haspel at the head of an amazing CIA tutoring a clueless moron of a POTUS. The third part they got right.
Why are they fluffing the torturer and the out-of-control CIA? Is something planned where they want both to shine in their future stories on that "something"?
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Apr 08, 2019 | www.wsws.org
Habakkuk on cockroaches and the New York Times
"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.
(See https://dailycaller.com/201... ; https://www.foxnews.com/pol... .)
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!’
(See https://twitter.com/RealSLo... .)
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...’
(See https://twitter.com/EliotHi... )
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.
(See https://www.theyworkforyou.... )
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.
(See https://www.cyberguerrilla .... )
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.Karl Kolchak -> chris chuba , a day agoGot 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.Jack -> Karl Kolchak , 15 hours agoVenezuela 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.Mad_Max22 , 17 hours ago"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.Jack , 15 hours ago
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.Davidjohn fletcher , a day agoIn 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.
VietnamVet , 12 hours agoI'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.
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Feb 22, 2019 | www.zerohedge.com
A top FBI official admitted to Congressional investigators last year that the agency had contacts within the Trump campaign as part of operation "Crossfire Hurricane," which sounds a lot like FBI "informant" Stefan Halper - a former Oxford University professor who was paid over $1 million by the Obama Department of Defense between 2012 and 2018, with nearly half of it surrounding the 2016 US election.According to portions of transcripts published on Tuesday by the Epoch Times of a Aug. 31, 2018 deposition by Trisha Anderson, the FBI relied on sources who "already had campaign contacts" in order to surveil the Trump team.
"To my knowledge, the FBI did not place anybody within a campaign but, rather, relied upon its network of sources, some of whom already had campaign contacts, including the source that has been discussed in the media at some length beyond Christopher Steele ," said Anderson - who was the #2 attorney at the FBI's Office of General Counsel, and had extensive involvement with the Trump counterintelligence investigation.
Halper is reportedly a longtime CIA and FBI informant, and has been involved in US politics at the highest levels for decades, becoming George H.W. Bush's National Director for Policy Development during his presidential campaign. After Bush lost to Reagan, Halper worked as Reagan's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State - where he served under three different Secretaries .
He then became a senior advisor to the Department of Defense and DOJ between 1984 and 2001. Halper's former father-in-law was Ray Cline, former Deputy Director of the CIA . He also allegedly spied on the Carter administration - collecting information on foreign policy (an account disputed by Ray Cline).
Halper's involvement in surveilling the Trump campaign was exposed by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross, who reported that the 74-year-old spook was enlisted by the FBI to befriend and spy on three members of the Trump campaign during the 2016 US election .
Halper received a DoD contract from the Obama administration for $411,575 - made in two payments, and had a start date of September 26, 2016 - three days after a September 23 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by "pissgate" dossier creator Christopher Steele . The FBI would use the Yahoo! article along with the unverified "pissgate" dossier as supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page. Halper approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months, frequently meeting and exchanging emails .
He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. - New York Times
And as the Daily Caller reports, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page.
In September 2016, the FBI would send Halper to further probe Trump aide George Papadopoulos on an allegation he made that Russia had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton. According to Papadopoulos in an interview with Dan Bongino, Halper angrily accused him of working with Russia before storming out of a meeting.
Halper essentially began interrogating Papadopoulos, saying that it's "obviously in your interest to be working with the Russians" and to "hack emails." " You're complicit with Russia in this, isn't that right George " Halper told him. Halper also inquired about Hillary's hacked emails, insinuating that Papadopoulos possessed them. Papadopoulos denied knowing anything about this and asked to be left alone. - Bongino.com
Just don't call Halper a spy...
hugin-o-munin , 1 hour ago link
schroedingersrat , 59 minutes ago linkAll of these blatant crimes done by the Democrat cheerleading swamp creatures NEVER get investigated and I am starting to wonder what the hell Trump is doing. Is he stupid or is all of this just a charade and they are all on the same team. How could this creep Rod Rosenstein have been left at his position until this time? It makes no sense to me. Sure all of these rodents have control files on each other but come on how scared are they? It's ridiculous. If Trump soon gets impeached I'll hold him responsible himself for not doing anything.
hugin-o-munin , 57 minutes ago linkThey are all on the same team. Trump was never your saviour. He was designed to be a distraction so the 0.01% that own both parties can rape you some more.
donkey_shot , 5 hours ago linkCorrect. It's all a big lie and show for the uninformed masses. God help these liars when all the Qanon followers wake up to this truth. All this 'tremendous winning' bs will boomerang back big time.
youshallnotkill , 5 hours ago linkThe above Halper story has been circulating for about a year now, so this isn`t actually big news. As for the FBI and the CIA subverting just about every political campaign or social movement in existence: Well, duh. The deep state and its satanic minions will remain in control as long as such "intelligence" and State Security agencies (the FBI is essentially nothing but a US version of the SS) are allowed to exist.
punchasocialist , 1 hour ago linkNot a word on here on the breaking news in the Epstein case.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5745926-Epstein-Order.html
Typical.
Alex Acosta works out an illegal deal for Epstein = Trump gives Acosta a cabinet position = Trump is a protector of Pedo protectors = Trump doesn't give 2 shits about Pedos
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Aug 29, 2018 | www.foxnews.com
The professor who reportedly assisted the FBI's Russia probe as a confidential source is at the center of a Defense Department whisteblower complaint that alleges government contractor abuses, as well as excessive payments with taxpayer dollars, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Fox News.
The complaint was filed by attorney Sean Bigley on behalf of Pentagon lawyer Adam Lovinger. Earlier this month, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch announced it was suing the Defense Department on behalf of Lovinger to force the release of emails and other electronic messages after Lovinger had his security clearance suspended.
Bigley, who is representing Lovinger pro bono, said his client flagged the concerns about contractors -- including Stefan Halper , the professor -- as early as 2016, to Lovinger's leadership at the Office of Net Assessment (ONA), which is like an internal Pentagon think tank.
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Aug 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
A Pentagon whistleblower was stripped of his security clearance and demoted after complaining about questionable government contracts with both FBI
informantspy Stefan Halper and a company headed by Chelsea Clinton's "best friend" for whom then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings, reports the Washington Times .Adam Lovinger, a Trump supporter and 12-year veteran of the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment (ONA), filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint with the Defense Department's inspector general in May against ONA boss James Baker - who hired Halper, 73, to "conduct foreign relations" and kept the details of the spy's contracts "close to the vest." Baker was appointed chief of the ONA in 2015 by Obama Defense Secretary, Ashton Carter.
At that point, Lovinger wouldn't have known was a spy working with the FBI/DOJ on operation " Crossfire Hurricane " - the code name for the Obama administration's counterintelligence operation against the Trump campaign.
In an internal October 2016 email to higher-ups, Mr. Lovinger wrote of " the moral hazard associated with the Washington Headquarters Services contracting with Stefan Halper ," the complaint said. It said Mr. Baker hired Mr. Halper to "conduct foreign relations," a job that should be confined to government officials.
...
In the fall of 2016, as the election loomed, Mr. Lovinger sent emails to Mr. Baker and other officials at the Office of Net Assessment complaining about the entire outside contracting process. He also said the office failed to write papers on long-term threats presented by radical Islam, China and Iran .
And in September 2016, Lovinger sent an email directly to Baker summing up the perceived problems, which reads in part:
"Some of our contractors distribute to others their ONA work for personal and professional self-promotion," wrote Lovinger. "Another part is the growing narrative that ONA's most high-profile contractors are known for getting paid a lot to do rather peripheral work ."
"On the issue of pay, our contractors boast about how much they get paid from ONA . Such boasting, of course, generates jealously among those outside the club, and particularly from those who have tried to secure ONA contracts unsuccessfully."
"On the issue of quality, more than once I have heard our contractor studies labeled 'derivative,' 'college-level' and based heavily on secondary sources . One of our contractor studies was literally cut and pasted from a World Bank report that I just happened to have read the week before reading the contractor study itself. Even the font was the same."
Halper - an Oxford University professor, former US government official and longtime FBI / CIA asset (who was married to the CIA deputy director's daughter at one point), received over $400,000 for a 2016 contract which Lovinger complained about.
According to USASpending.gov, Mr. Halper was paid $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016 , for a contract that ran until this March. - Washington Times
In total, the American citizen teaching abroad received over $1 million from contracts dated between 2012 and 2016.
Lovinger's attorney, Sean M. Bigley, filed the second of four complaints on July 18 with the Pentagon's senior ethics official, claiming that Lovinger's bosses punished him on May 1, 2017 by abusing the security clearance process to yank his credentials and relegate him to clerical chores. Lovinger's complaint also names the Washington Headquarters Services, a support agency within the Pentagon that awarded the Halper contracts.
"As it turns out, one of the two contractors Mr. Lovinger explicitly warned his ONA superiors about misusing in 2016 was none other than Mr. Halper ," wrote Bigley in the ethics complaint, which referred to the contracts as " cronyism and corruption ."
" Nobody in the office seemed to know what Halper was doing for his money ," said Bigley. "Adam said Jim Baker, the director, kept Halper's contracts very close to the vest. And nobody seemed to have any idea what he was doing at the time. He subcontracted out a good chunk of it to other academics. He would compile them all and then collect the balance as his fee as a middleman . That was very unusual."
A longtime CIA and FBI asset who once reportedly ran a spy-operation on the Jimmy Carter administration, Halper was enlisted by the FBI to spy on several Trump campaign aides during the 2016 U.S. election, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.
Halper's $411,575 award came three days after a September 23 Yahoo! News article by Michael Isikoff about Trump aide Carter Page, which used information fed to Isikoff by "Steele dossier" creator Christopher Steele . The FBI would use the Yahoo! article along with the largely unverified dossier as supporting evidence in an FISA warrant application for Page.
The unassuming university professor approached Page during an election-themed conference at Cambridge on July 11, 2016, six weeks after the September 26 DoD award start date. The two would stay in contact for the next 14 months, frequently meeting and exchanging emails .
He said that he first encountered the informant during a conference in mid-July of 2016 and that they stayed in touch. The two later met several times in the Washington area. Mr. Page said their interactions were benign. - New York Times
And as the Daily Caller reported, Halper used a decades-old association with Paul Manafort to break the ice with Page.
Page noted that in their first conversation at Cambridge, Halper said he was longtime friends with then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort . A person close to Manafort told TheDCNF that Manafort has not seen Halper since the Gerald Ford administration . Manafort and Page are accused in the Steele dossier of having worked together on the campaign's collusion conspiracy, but both men say they have never met. - Daily Caller
Halper would continue to spy on Page after the election. Two days after the second installment of Halper's 2016 DoD contract, On July 28, he emailed Page with what the Trump campaign aide describes as a "cordial" communication, which did not seem suspicious to him at the time.
In the email to Page, Halper asks what his plans are post-election, possibly probing for more information. " It seems attention has shifted a bit from the 'collusion' investigation to the ' contretempts' [sic] within the White House and, how--or if--Mr. Scaramucci will be accommodated there," Halper wrote.
Clinton connection
The other complaint lodged by Lovinger concerns a string of contracts totaling $11 million to Long Term Strategy Group - a D.C. consulting firm headed by self-described "best friend" of Chelseal Clinton, Jacqueline Newmyer Deal.
In October, the Washington Free Beacon reported that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arranged meetings in 2009 between Deal and Pentagon officials to discuss contracts - to which Deal says no award "resulted directly or indirectly from the actions or influence of Secretary Clinton ."
According to one 2009 email, Clinton said she recommended Deal to Michele Flournoy, the newly installed undersecretary of defense for policy, who was seeking young women to mentor.
Deal, a specialist in China affairs who worked at the White House as a press aide for First Lady Clinton in the 1990s, wrote back to Clinton saying she would meet Flournoy on May 5, 2009, and stated "thank you very much for making this happen."
Later that month, Deal thanked Clinton for "all your encouragement and help with DoD, " shorthand for the Defense Department. - Free Beacon
In a statement, Deal said: "Jacqueline Deal and the Long Term Strategy Group (LTSG) are justifiably proud of their collaboration with the US Department of Defense across multiple administrations over the last two decades, beginning under the administration of President George W. Bush. LTSG's work has consistently earned the highest respect and confidence of its clientele in government and has won LTSG a reputation for producing research and analysis of exceptional quality."
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May 27, 2018 | thefederalist.com
The New York Times' 4,000-word report last week on the Federal Bureau of Investigation probe of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign's possible ties to Russia revealed for the first time that the investigation was called "Crossfire Hurricane."
The name, explains the paper, refers to the Rolling Stones lyric "I was born in a crossfire hurricane," from the 1968 hit "Jumpin' Jack Flash." Mick Jagger, one of the songwriters, said the song was a "metaphor" for psychedelic-drug induced states. The other, Keith Richards, said it "refers to his being born amid the bombing and air raid sirens of Dartford, England, in 1943 during World War II."
Investigation names, say senior U.S. law enforcement officials, are designed to refer to facts, ideas, or people related to the investigation. Sometimes they're explicit, and other times playful or even allusive. So what did the Russia investigation have to do with World War II, psychedelic drugs, or Keith's childhood?
The answer may be found in the 1986 Penny Marshall film named after the song, "Jumpin' Jack Flash." In the Cold War-era comedy, a quirky bank officer played by Whoopi Goldberg comes to the aid of Jonathan Pryce, who plays a British spy being chased by the KGB.
The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is therefore most likely a reference to the former British spy whose allegedly Russian-sourced reports on the Trump team's alleged ties to Russia were used as evidence to secure a Foreign Intelligence Service Act secret warrant on Trump adviser Carter Page in October 2016: ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele.
Helping Spin a New Origin StoryIt is hardly surprising that the Times refrained from exploring the meaning of the code name. The paper of record has apparently joined a campaign, spearheaded by the Department of Justice, FBI, and political operatives pushing the Trump-Russia collusion story, to minimize Steele's role in the Russia investigation.
After an October news report showed his dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee, facts that further challenged the credibility of Steele's research, the FBI investigation's origin story shifted.
In December, The New York Times published a "scoop " on the new origin story. In the revised narrative, the probe didn't start with the Steele dossier at all. Rather, it began with an April 2016 meeting between Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and a Maltese professor named Joseph Mifsud. The professor informed him that "he had just learned from high-level Russian officials in Moscow that the Russians had 'dirt' on Mrs. Clinton in the form of 'thousands of emails.'"
Weeks later, Papadopoulos boasted to the Australian ambassador to London, Alexander Downer, that he was told the Russians had Clinton-related emails. Two months later, according to the Times , the Australians reported Papadopoulos' boasts to the FBI, and on July 31, 2016, the bureau began its investigation.
Further reinforcement of the new origin story came from congressional Democrats. A January 29 memo written by House Intelligence Committee minority staff under ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff further distances Steele from the opening of the investigation. "Christopher Steele's raw reporting did not inform the FBI's decision to initiate its counterintelligence investigation in late July 2016. In fact, the FBI's closely-held investigative team only received Steele's reporting in mid-September."
Last week's major Times article echoes the Schiff memo. Steele's reports, according to the paper, reached the "Crossfire Hurricane team" "in mid-September."
Yet the new account of how the government spying campaign against Trump started is highly unlikely. According to the thousands of favorable press reports asserting his credibility, Steele was well-respected at the FBI for his work on a 2015 case that helped win indictments of more than a dozen officials working for soccer's international governing body, FIFA. In July 2016, Steele met with the agent he worked with on the FIFA case to show his early findings on the Trump team's ties to Russia.
The FBI took Steele's reporting on Trump's ties to Russia so seriously it was later used as evidence to monitor the electronic communications of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. But, according to Schiff and the Times , the FBI somehow lost track of reports from a "credible" source who claimed to have information showing that the Republican candidate for president was compromised by a foreign government. That makes no sense.
The code name "Crossfire Hurricane" is further evidence that the FBI's cover story is absurd. A reference to a movie about a British spy evading Russian spies behind enemy lines suggests the Steele dossier was always the core of the bureau's investigation into the Trump campaign.
Was Halper an Informant, Spy, Or Agent Provocateur?Taken together with the other significant revelation from last Times story, the purpose and structure of Crossfire Hurricane may be coming into clearer focus. According to the Times story: "At least one government informant met several times with [Trump campaign advisers Carter] Page and [George] Papadopoulos, current and former officials said."
As we now know, the informant is Stefan Halper, a former classmate of Bill Clinton's at Oxford University who worked in the Nixon, Ford, and Reagan administrations. Halper is known for his good connections in intelligence circles. His father-in-law was Ray Cline , former deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Halper is also reported to have led the 1980 Ronald Reagan campaign team that collected intelligence on sitting U.S. President Jimmy Carter's foreign policy.
So what was Halper doing in this instance? He wasn't really a spy (a person who is generally tasked with stealing secrets) or an informant (a person who provides information about criminal activities from the inside). Rather, it seems he was more like an agent provocateur, whose job was to ask leading questions to get Trump campaign advisers to say things that would corroborate -- or seem to corroborate -- evidence that the bureau believed it already had in hand.
It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things.Halper met with at least three Trump campaign advisers: Sam Clovis, Page, and George Papadopoulos. The latter two he met with in London, where Halper had reason to feel comfortable operating.
Halper's close contacts in the intelligence world weren't limited to the CIA. They also include foreign intelligence officials like Richard Dearlove , the former head of the United Kingdom's foreign intelligence service, MI6. According to a Washington Times report , Halper and Dearlove are partners in a UK consulting firm, Cambridge Security Initiative.
Dearlove is also close to Steele. According to the Washington Post , Dearlove met with Steele in the early fall of 2016, when his former charge shared his "worries" about what he'd found on the Trump campaign and "asked for his guidance."
London was therefore the perfect place for Halper to spring a trap -- outside the direct purview of the FBI, but on territory where he knew he could operate safely. It appears Halper's job was to induce inexperienced Trump campaign figures to say things that corroborated the 35-page series of memos written by Steele -- the centerpiece of the Russiagate investigation -- in order to license a broader campaign of government spying against Trump and his associates in the middle of a presidential election.
Halper Reached Out to Trump Campaign MembersChuck Ross's reporting in The Daily Caller provides invaluable details and insight. As Ross explained in The Daily Caller back in March, Halper emailed Papadopoulos on September 2, 2016 with an invitation to write a research paper, for which he'd be paid $3,000, and a paid trip to London. According to Ross, "Papadopoulos and Halper met several times during the London trip," with one meeting scheduled for September 13 and another two days later.
Ross writes: "According to a source with knowledge of the meeting, Halper asked Papadopoulos: 'George, you know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?' Papadopoulos told Halper he didn't know anything about emails or Russian hacking." It seems Halper was looking to elaborate on the claims made in Steele's September 14 dossier memo : "Russians do have further 'kompromat' on CLINTON (e-mails) and considering disseminating it."
Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true.Had Papadopoulos confirmed that a shadowy Maltese academic had told him in April about Russians holding Clinton-related emails, presumably that would have entered the dossier as something like, "Trump campaign adviser PAPADOPOULOS confirms knowledge of Russian 'kompromat.'"
Another Trump campaign adviser Halper contacted was Page. They first met in Cambridge, England at a July 11, 2016 symposium. Halper's partner Dearlove spoke at the conference, which was held just days after Page had delivered a widely reported speech at the New Economic School in Moscow. According to another Ross article reporting on Page and Halper's interactions, the Trump adviser "recalls nothing of substance being discussed other than Halper's passing mention that he knew then-campaign chairman Paul Manafort."
Page and Manafort both figure prominently in the Steele dossier's July 19 memos. According to the document , Manafort "was using foreign policy advisor, Carter PAGE, and others as intermediaries." Page had also, according to the dossier, met with senior Kremlin officials -- a charge he later denied in his November 2, 2017 testimony before the House Intelligence Committee. Evidently, he also gave Halper nothing to use in verifying the charges made against him.
Halper's fishing expedition therefore came up with nothing to suggest the Steele dossier was true. The real story is therefore the continuing attempt to assert that the dossier, or key parts of it, are true, after large-scale investigations by the FBI, and now by special counsel Robert Mueller, have failed to turn up any evidence of a plot hatched between Trump and Vladimir Putin to take over the White House.
Using Spy Powers on Political Opponents Is a Big ProblemThat portions of the American national security apparatus would put their considerable powers -- surveillance, spying, legal pressure -- at the service of a partisan political campaign is a sign that something very big is broken in Washington. Our Founding Fathers would not be surprised to learn that the post-9/11 surveillance and spying apparatus built to protect Americans from al-Qaeda has now become a political tool that targets Americans for partisan purposes. That the rest of us are surprised is a sign that we have stopped taking the U.S. Constitution as seriously as we should.
The damage done to the American press is equally large. Since the November 2016 presidential election, a financially imperiled media industry gambled its remaining prestige on Russiagate. Yet after nearly a year and a half filled with thousands of stories feeding the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy, last week still represented a landmark moment in American journalism. The New York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential campaign.
The New York Times , which proudly published the Pentagon Papers, provided cover for an espionage operation against a presidential campaign.There are significant errors and misrepresentations in the article that the Times could've easily checked, if it weren't in such a hurry to hide the FBI and DOJ's crimes and abuses. Perhaps most significantly, the Times avoided asking the key questions that the article raised with its revelation that "at least one government informant" met with Trump campaign figures.
So, how many "informants" targeted the Trump campaign? Were they being paid by the U.S. government? What are their names? What were they doing?
Under whose authority were they spying on a political campaign? Did FBI and DOJ leadership sign off? Did FBI director James Comey and Attorney General Loretta Lynch know about it? What about other senior Obama administration officials? CIA Director John Brennan? Did President Obama know the FBI was spying on a presidential campaign? Did Hillary Clinton know? What about Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta?
These questions are sure to be asked. What we know already is that the Times reporters did not ask them, because they do not bother to indicate that the officials interviewed for the story had declined to answer. That they did not ask these questions is evidence the Times is no longer a newspaper that sees its job as reporting the truth or holding high government officials responsible for their crimes. Lee Smith is the media columnist at Tablet.
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May 24, 2018 | consortiumnews.com
Luke Lea , May 19, 2018 at 3:11 pm
Russell Harris , May 19, 2018 at 3:35 pmKeep in mind this Halper guy was an old Bush operative. And Bush began the Dossier thing.
chet roman , May 19, 2018 at 4:21 pmIt wasn't Bush who started it, it was Matthew Continetti of the Free Beacon who started it but quickly bailed
The Bush mention you made I think is quite on the target in one, the Bushes were/are anti-Trumpers RINOs to their marrow
andy--s , May 23, 2018 at 12:34 amNot even close. Fusion GPS was initially hired by the Washington Free Beacon (a neocon rag funded by billionaire Paul Singer) to do some background investigation on all Republican presidential candidates. After Trump won the nomination the Beacon ended its business ties to Fusion GPS and then, and only then, did the DNC/Hillary Campaign begin their funding of Fusion GPS through a "cut out" law firm (Perkins Coie) to hide their activities. Christopher Steele was hired by Fusion GPS only after the DNC/Hillary got involved, it had nothing to do with Bush or the Republican party.
It's quite likely that Christopher Steele, a former MI6 spy, knew Stepan Halper (CIA and FBI spy who began his spying on Trump campaign long before the FBI "officially" started spying) who is a friend of the head of MI6, Richard Dearlove and may have used him to support the dossier.
Also, Christopher Steele's company Orbis also hired another MI6 agent by the name of Pablo Miller who lives in Salisbury and who is the MI6 agent that originally recruited MI6 spy Sergei Skripal. Miller deleted his ties to Orbis on his Linkedin account but reporters found archival evidence. All this seems to indicate that Skripal may have been a source of the misinformation in the dossier and poisoned by MI6/CIA spooks to shift more blame on the Russians.
andy--s , May 23, 2018 at 12:34 amThe Zenith occures when Fusion GPS hires Chris Steel, april 2016, same time DNC money gets to them. Fusion GPS immediatly hire Nellie Orh. Nelli'es husband Bruce then fed NSA query data to Fusion GPS and steel assembled it.
Gary Weglarz , May 19, 2018 at 1:51 pmyou got it! :)
Meanwhile "dual-citizen" John "freaking" Bolton our U.S. National Security Advisor is lobbying for policies toward Iran that miraculously somehow manage to mirror those of Israel's psychopath-in-chief Netanyahu -- what a "freaking" coincidence, but, we're all supposed to keep repeating the official deep state mantra: "Russia, Russia, Russia, Putin, oh my!" -- like good little zombies.
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May 23, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
There are still many unanswered questions, but the evidence that now is part of the public record removes any doubt that British and US Intelligence services collaborated in a devious and fabricated scheme to portray the Trump campaign as intent on collaborating with Russia. The evidence was planted and cleverly fabricated. It was done through highly classified intelligence channels, which created a paper trail and provided prima facie "evidence" that individuals with tenuous ties to the Trump campaign where seeking meetings with Russian officials. What was not reported, however, was the fact that the original impetus for those reporting on those communications originated with an individual who appears to be an MI-6 intelligence asset. His name is Joseph Mifsud and I believe that evidence ultimately will establish that he was directed to contact and then feed incriminating information to George Papadopoulos. That information became the foundation of creating a counter intelligence investigation of Donald Trump and his campaign.
First a word about Joseph Mifsud. He is currently missing. But the public record on him strongly suggests that he was working as an intelligence asset of the United Kingdom's MI-6. Elizabeth Vos at Disobedient Media provides an excellent review of Mifsud and his links to British intel ( her article appears to have been taken down , but it is solid and I saved a copy):
Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese scholar with an eclectic academic history who Quartz described as an "enigma," while legacy press has enthusiastically characterized him as a central personality in the Trump-Russia scandal. The New York Times described Mifsud as an "enthusiastic promoter of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia", citing his regular involvement in the annual meetings of the Valdai Discussion Club, a Russian-based think-tank, as well as three short articles he wrote in support of Russian policies.
Mifsud strongly denied claims that he was associated with Russian intelligence, telling Italian newspaper Repubblica that he was a member of the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Clinton Foundation, adding that his political outlook was "left-leaning." Last month, Slate reported Mifsud had 'disappeared', as did some of the other figures linking the UK to the Trump-Russia scandal.
Mifsud's alleged links to Russian intelligence are summarily debunked by his close working relationship with Claire Smith, a major figure in the upper echelons of British intelligence. A number of Twitter users recently observed that Joseph Mifsud had been photographed standing next to Claire Smith of the UK Joint Intelligence Committee at Mifsud's LINK campus in Rome. Newsmax and Buzzfeed later reported that the professor's name and biography had been removed from the campus' website, writing that the mysterious removal took place after Mifsud had served the institution for "years."
The FBI got its foot in the door to investigate Trump for Russian ties because of "intelligence" about George Papadopoulos. But that intelligence was fabricated. Let me show you how this happened. Let's go to the Statement of Offense filed against Papadopoulos . It states that Papadopoulos made "material false statements and material omissions to the FBI:"
Papadopoulos claimed that his interactions with Joseph Mifsud occurred before Papadopoulos "became a foreign policy advisor to the Campaign."
Defendant PAPADOPOULOS further told the investigating agents that the professor was "a nothing" and "just a guy talk[ing] up connections or something." In truth and in fact, however, defendant PAPADOPOULOS understood that the professor had substantial connections to Russian government officials (and had met with some of those officials in Moscow immediately prior to telling defendant PAPADOPOULOS about the "thousands of emails") and, over a period of months, defendant PAPADOPOULOS repeatedly sought to use the professor's Russian connections in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.
Defendant PAPADOPOULOS claimed he met a certain female Russian national before he joined the Campaign and that their communications consisted of emails such as,'"Hi, how are you?"'In truth and in fact, however, defendant PAPADOPOULOS met the female Russian national on or about March 24, 2016, after he had become an adviser to the Campaign; he believed that she had connections to Russian government officials; and he sought to use her Russian connections over a period of months in an effort to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian government officials.Pay close attention to the actual facts. Papadopoulos met with Mifsud in Italy on 14 March 2016. Although both shared an affiliation prior to that 14 March meeting with the London Centre of International Law Practice, they were not buddies nor in regular communication. According to the NY Times , Mifsud had little interest in Papadopoulos until the latter was named a Trump foreign policy advisor.
Traveling in Italy that March, Mr. Papadopoulos met Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor at a now-defunct London academy who had valuable contacts with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Mr. Mifsud showed little interest in Mr. Papadopoulos at first.
But when he found out he was a Trump campaign adviser, he latched onto him, according to court records and emails obtained by The New York Times. Their joint goal was to arrange a meeting between Mr. Trump and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow, or between their respective aides.
Only one tiny problem--Mifsud met in Italy with Papadopoulos on the 14th of March but George was not announced publicly as an advisor until ONE WEEK later, on the 21st. So how did Joseph Mifsud know about Papadopoulos' new job? Why was Mifsud so eager to meet with Papadopoulos?
Once Papdopolous was announced, Mifsud kicked into overdrive trying to introduce George to Russians. On 24 March Mifsud hosted Papadopolous, who reported the meeting to Stephen Miller on the Trump campaign:
Papadopoulos: "just finished a very productive lunch with a good friend of mine, [Mifsud ] . . . ‐ who introduced me to both Putin's niece and the Russian Ambassador in London ‐ who also acts as the Deputy Foreign Minister."
"The topic of the lunch was to arrange a meeting between us and the Russian leadership to discuss U.S.-Russia ties under President Trump. They are keen to host us in a 'neutral' city, or directly in Moscow. They said the leadership, including Putin, is ready to meet with us and Mr. Trump should there be interest. Waiting for everyone's thoughts on moving forward with this very important issue."
Here is what you need to understand. When Papadopoulos communicated to persons in the Trump campaign the results of his meetings with Mifsud and Mifsud's Russian contacts, that information was relayed from the UK to America via telephone and email. Those conversations, without one doubt, were intercepted and put into a Top Secret intel reports (known in intel circles as SIGINT) by GCHQ.
It would be damning if Papadopoulos had initiated the contact with Russian sources and was lighting up the web with requests for info about Russians willing to work with or help Trump. But that did not happen. The impetus to talk about Russia originated with Mifsud, who, based on circumstantial evidence, was a British intelligence asset and was directed to target and bait Papadopoulos. It was Mifsud who raised the specter of the Russians targeting Hillary Clinton (see pp 6-7 of the Statement of Offense):
On or about April 26, 2016, defendant PAPADOPOULOS met the Professor for breakfast at a London hotel. During this meeting, the Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS that he had just returned from a trip to Moscow where he had met with high-level Russian government officials. The Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained "dirt" on then-candidate Clinton. The Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS, as defendant PAPADOPOULOS later described to the FBI, that "They [the Russians] have dirt on her; the Russians had emails of Clinton; "they have thousands of emails."
Mifsud provided the Russian information. Not Papadopoulos. Mifsud's mission of feeding Papadopoulos "Russian intelligence," which the later then reported back to the Trump campaign produced the casus belli (of sorts) to justify opening an FBI counter intelligence investigation. The FBI also was ensnared, most likely. It does not appear the FBI was briefed immediately on these matters. Instead, John Brennan and Jim Clapper built up a pretty sizable intel file, filled with SIGINT reports from the UK's GCHQ, which contained American names and reports of efforts to broker a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Of course they (Clapper and Brennan) conveniently failed to mention to the FBI that the information originated with a UK plant. But it did provide legal cover for unmasking the identities of Trump campaign personnel.
This was not the only "information dump" in place. MI-6 also helped ensure that there was an "independent" source of intelligence--human intelligence. Hence the Steele Dossier, with the first reports being produced in June 2016. It is this combination of SIGNALS INTELLIGENCE and HUMAN INTELLIGENCE, which persuaded the FBI that something serious was going on. While it may be possible that Comey and McCabe conspired initially with Brennan and Clapper, I do not think that is what happened. Comey and McCabe were duped by Brennan and Clapper into believing that there was actual malfeasance underway with the Trump campaign. They were naive, even stupid, but not engaged in sedition.
What I have outlined above is the circumstantial case for how the so-called intelligence was generated to create a feasible foundation for opening a counter intelligence investigation of President Trump and his campaign. But if Vegas allowed a bet on this scenario I would bet my house and feel confident of collecting a big payoff.
Meanwhile, we also have an FBI informant who was a CIA spy who ran a spying operation for a previous election campaign. Nothing like hiring people with experience!James Thomas -> richardstevenhack , a day agoThe FBI Informant Who Monitored the Trump Campaign, Stefan Halper, Oversaw a CIA Spying Operation in the 1980 Presidential Election https://theintercept.com/20...
Put the two together - Mifsud and Halper - and you get a clear effort by the CIA and FBI to "entrap" hapless Trump associates into the Russiagate narrative as a deliberate project to undermine the Trump campaign and the subsequent Trump Presidency.
It is worth noting that Halper was paid $1,058,161 by the Department of Defense - I presume for his work as an "informant".BradleyKSherman -> richardstevenhack , a day agoI think it is insane that Rosenstein keeps getting away with telling the House Intelligence Committee to go jump in a lake.
Red herring. Trump (and Clinton) were informed that surveillance was in place: https://www.nbcnews.com/new...Fred -> BradleyKSherman , 12 hours agoDid you know that Trump refuses to use a secure cellphone? https://www.politico.com/st...
Bradley,Publius Tacitus -> BradleyKSherman , 12 hours agoJuly comes after April in the calendar. "Weeks after..." is even further after that. Try reading the actual article. Then read the publicly available ones that state how Comey left out details in that briefing. Nice try though.
Total bullshit and irrelevant. The briefing each received was routine and had nothing to do with the clandestine campaign to frame Trump and his team as colluding with the Russians. Is that the best you got?Publius Tacitus -> richardstevenhack , a day agoYes. That is it in a nutshell.JerseyJeffersonian , a day agoWell, done, PT.Publius Tacitus -> JerseyJeffersonian , a day agoHowever, to further flesh out the ever-clearer role of MI6 in the set-up, you might want to cast an eye at this recent post from Justin Raimondo at antiwar.com that ties together Papadapoulos, Mifsud, Richard Dearlove, and Stefan Halper, a dual-national (UK & US) who had been active in the Trump campaign. A rather dodgy dude, from appearances...
https://original.antiwar.co...
Carry on with your good spade work and interpretation.
JerseyJeffersonian
Thanks for the link. However, Raimondo's piece is dreadful. He fails to grasp what actually happened. I will do a longer piece that will connect the dots.James Doleman , 16 hours agoIf that's true why didn't they leak it before the election? Seems a bit useless otherwise.Sid Finster -> James Doleman , 14 hours agoBecause nobody thought Trump would win. It waq only after the election that the heat was really cranked up, in order make it clear to Trump that he may be titular president, but he is not the one in charge.Publius Tacitus -> James Doleman , 13 hours agoIf what is true? Can you try to be more descriptive in the point you are raising.seesee2468 , a day agoThank you very much for this very penetrating article. I think it should also be mentioned that Mifsud himself explicitly denies most of the allegations quoted in the Statement of Offense, a situation that opens up the possibility that many of Papadopoulos' later confessions to the FBI regarding Mifsud were just as fictional as the earlier statements for which he was arrested.Publius Tacitus -> seesee2468 , 13 hours agoMifsud told The Telegraph last year that many of the contents of the alleged April 26 conversation with Papadopoulos, quoted in your article, have no basis in reality.
Mifsud denied that he pushed Papadopoulos toward the Russian government. Instead, he says he introduced Papadopoulos to 1) the director of an academic Russian think tank and 2) experts connected with the EU.
Mifsud also said he never told Papadopoulos that he had just returned from Russia after meeting with senior Russian government officials, and he also denied he had mentioned anything about the Russians allegedly having lots of "dirt" about Hillary. In addition, Mifsud thought the claim that he had introduced a female "Russian national" to Papadopoulos was completely ridiculous.
Why might Papadopoulos have made up fictional stories and told them to the FBI and the Trump campaign? No one knows, but perhaps Papadopoulos wanted to please the FBI by telling them what he thought they wanted to hear. As for the Trump campaign, The Telegraph comments: "Papadopoulos also appeared to over-exaggerate the extent of his Russian contacts in messages to the Trump campaign, according to court documents. In one email sent to the Trump campaign Mr Papadopoulos says he has just been introduced to the Russian Ambassador in London.
He has since admitted the pair never met." Possibly Papadopoulos wanted to impress the Trump campaign and make them think he was an important figure with crucial info. Or, if Papadopoulos was actually a secret FBI asset, perhaps Papadopoulos was trying hard to become an important member of the Trump campaign in order to compromise or entrap both Trump and members of the campaign with his (fake) info about being an expert on Russia who had met Putin and had access to lots of Russian-held dirt about Hillary. If Mifsud's whereabouts are known, the House Intel Committee really ought to call him as a witness.
Mifsud's belated efforts to cover his tracks failed. His denials don't matter. The Statement of Offense establishes the "facts." You are missing the key point -- how would anyone know about thousands of "stolen" emails on 26 April when the so-called hack of the DNC and Clinton did not occur until 31 May?David Lewis , a day agothe risks of pre-emption...by covertly instigating a crime to a party one suspects as criminal,,,one may miss out on the chance to prosecute a self-initiated crime
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May 12, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Posted by: WJ | May 12, 2018 3:50:46 PM | 96
Julian Assange
@JulianAssange
There is something very odd about the Joseph Mifsud story and the role of the UK in the 2016 US presidential election:
(thread)
5:07 PM · Mar 22, 2018DEVELOPING: A major new front is opening in the political espionage scandal. In summer 2016, Brennan with his FBI liaison Strzok, along with help from Kerry @ State, were trying to set Russian espionage traps for minor players in the Trump campaign through cultivated intel assets
-- Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) May 11, 2018
james , May 12, 2018 4:18:00 PM | 105@96 wj... You might find this article on mifsud of interest.. there are some earlier ones on that site too worth a read.. the gist of the articles are essentially mifsud is a british or cia intel asset, as opposed to how he is portrayed in the west..@99 / 100 a p.. thanks for your perspective and your many fine posts! i guess we can wait and see how it unfolds..
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